7. Classroom management and the learning environment
seat-work times to sharpen her pencil. She is continually out of her seat to go to the sharpener. Yet this behavior is
not really noticed by others. Is it then really a problem, however unnecessary or ill-timed it may be? In both
examples ignoring the behavior may be wise because there is little danger of the behavior disrupting other students
or of becoming more frequent. Interrupting your activities—or the students’—might cause more disruption than
simply ignoring the problem.
That said, there can still be problems in deciding whether a particular misbehavior is truly minor, infrequent, or
unnoticed by others. Unlike in our example above, students may whisper to each other more than “rarely” but less
than “often”: in that case, when do you decide that the whispering is in fact too frequent and needs a more active
response from you? Or the student who sharpens her pencil, mentioned above, may not bother most others, but she
may nonetheless bother a few. In that case how many bothered classmates are “too many”? Five, three, just one,
or…? In these ambiguous cases, you may need more active ways of dealing with an inappropriate behavior, like the
ones described in the next sections.
Gesturing nonverbally
Sometimes it works to communicate using gestures, eye contact, or “body language” that involve little or no
speaking. Nonverbal cues are often appropriate if a misbehavior is just a bit too serious or frequent to ignore, but
not serious or frequent enough to merit taking the time deliberately to speak to or talk with the student. If two
students are chatting off-task for a relatively extended time, for example, sometimes a glance in their direction, a
frown, or even just moving closer to the students is enough of a reminder to get them back on task. Even if these
responses prove not to be enough, they may help to keep the off-task behavior from spreading to other students.
A risk of relying on nonverbal cues, however, is that some students may not understand their meaning, or may
even fail to notice them. If the two chatting students mentioned above are engrossed in their talking, for example,
they may not see you glance or frown at them. Or they might notice but not interpret your cue as a reminder to get
back on task. Misinterpretation of nonverbal gestures and cues is more likely with young children, who are still
learning the subtleties of adults’ nonverbal “language” (Guerrero & Floyd, 2005; Heimann, et al., 2006). It is also
more likely with students who speak limited English or whose cultural background differs significantly from your
own. These students may have learned different nonverbal gestures from your own as part of their participation in
their original culture (Marsh, Elfenbein, & Ambady, 2003).
Natural and logical consequences
Consequences are the outcomes or results of an action. When managing a classroom, two kinds of consequences
are especially effective for influencing students' behavior: natural consequences and logical consequences. As the
term implies, natural consequences happen “naturally”, without deliberate intention by anyone. If a student is
late for class, for example, a natural consequence is that he misses information or material that needed to do an
assignment. Logical consequences are ones that happen because of the responses of or decisions by others, but
that also have an obvious or “logical” relationship to the original action. If one student steals another’s lunch, for
example, a logical consequence might be for the thief to reimburse the victim for the cost of the lunch. Natural and
logical consequences are often woven together and thus hard to distinguish: if one student picks a fight with
another student, a natural consequence might be injury not only to the victim, but also to the aggressor (an
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inherent byproduct of fighting), but a logical consequence might be to lose friends (the response of others to
fighting). In practice both may occur.
In general research has found that both natural and logical consequences can be effective for minimizing
undesirable behaviors, provided they are applied in appropriate situations (Weinstein, Tomlinson-Clarke, &
Curran, 2004). Consider a student who runs impulsively down school hallways. The student is likely to have “traffic
accidents”, and thus (hopefully) to see that running is not safe and to reduce the frequency of running. Or consider
a student who chronically talks during class instead of working on an assigned task. The student may have to make
up the assignment later, possibly as homework. Because the behavior and the consequence are connected logically,
the student is relatively likely to see the drawback of choosing to talk, and to reduce how much he or she talks on
subsequent occasions. In either case, whether natural or logical, the key features that make consequences work are
(a) that they are appropriate to the misbehavior and (b) that the student understands the connection between the
consequences and the original behavior.
Notice, though, that natural and logical consequences do not always work; if they did, there would be no further
need for management strategies! One limitation is that misbehaviors can sometimes be so serious that no natural or
logical consequence seems sufficient or appropriate. Suppose, for example, that one student deliberately breaks
another student’s eyeglasses. There may be a natural consequence for the victim (he or she will not be able to see
easily), but not for the student who broke the glasses. There may also be no consequences for the aggressor that are
both logical and fully satisfactory: the aggressor student will not be able to repair the broken glasses himself, and
may not be able to pay for new glasses either.
Another limitation of natural and logical consequences is that their success depends on the motives of the
misbehaving student. If the student is seeking attention or acceptance by others, then consequences often work
well. Bullying in order to impress others, for example, is more likely to lose friends than to win them—so bullying
motivated in this way is self-limiting. If a student is seeking power over others, on the other hand, then the
consequences of bullying may not reduce the behavior. Bullying in order to control others’ actions by definition
actually achieves its own goal, and its “natural” result (losing friends) would be irrelevant. Of course, a bully might
also act from a combination of motives, so that natural and logical consequences limit bullying behavior, but only
partially.
A third problem with natural and logical consequences is that they can easily be confused with deliberate
punishment (Kohn, 2006). The difference is important. Consequences are focused on repairing damage and
restoring relationships, and in this sense they focus on the future. Punishments highlight a mistake or wrongdoing
and in this sense focus on the past. Consequences tend to be more solution focused. Punishments tend to highlight
the person who committed the action, and they often shame or humiliate the wrong doer. (Table 17 summarizes
these and other differences.)
Table 17: Differences between consequences and punishments
Focused on future solutions Focused on past mistakes
Focused on individual’s actions Focused on character of student or child
Focused on repairing mistakes Focused on establishing blame
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Focused on restoring positive relationships Focused on isolating wrong-doer
Tend to reduce emotional pain and conflict Tend to impose emotional pain or conflict
Classroom examples of the differences between consequences and punishment are plentiful. If a student fails to
listen to the teacher's instructions, then a consequence is that he or she misses important information, but a
punishment may be that the teacher criticizes or reprimands the student. If a student speaks rudely to the teacher, a
consequence may be that the teacher does not respond to the comment, or simply reminds the student to speak
courteously. A punishment may be that the teacher scolds the student in the presence of others , or even imposes a
detention (“Stay after school for 15 minutes”).
Conflict resolution and problem solving
When a student misbehaves persistently and disruptively, you will need strategies that are more active and
assertive than the ones discussed so far, and that focus on conflict resolution—the reduction of disagreements
that persist over time. Conflict resolution strategies that educators and teachers tend to use usually have two parts
(Jones, 2004). First, they involve ways of identifying what “the” problem is precisely. Second, they remind the
student of classroom expectations and rules with simple clarity and assertiveness, but without apology or
harshness. When used together, the two strategies not only reduce conflicts between a teacher and an individual
student, but also provide a model for other students to follow when they have disagreements of their own. The next
sections discuss the nature of assertion and clarification for conflict resolution in more detail.
Step 1: clarifying and focusing: problem ownership
Classrooms can be emotional places even though their primary purpose is to promote thinking rather than
expression of feelings. The emotions can be quite desirable: they can give teachers and students “passion” for
learning and a sense of care among members of the class. But feelings can also cause trouble if students misbehave:
at those moments negative feelings—annoyance, anger, discomfort—can interfere with understanding exactly what
is wrong and how to set things right again. Gaining a bit of distance from the negative feelings is exactly what those
moments need, especially on the part of the teacher, the person with (presumably) the greatest maturity.
In a widely cited approach to conflict resolution called Teacher Effectiveness Training, the educator Thomas
Gordon describes this challenge as an issue of problem ownership, or deciding whose problem a behavior or
conflict it really is (Gordon, 2003). The “owner” of the problem is the primary person who is troubled or bothered
by it. The owner can be the student committing the behavior, the teacher, or another student who merely happens
to see the behavior. Since the owner of a problem needs to take primary responsibility for solving it, identifying
ownership makes a difference in how to deal with the behavior or problem effectively.
Suppose, for example, that a student named David makes a remark that the teacher finds offensive (like “Sean is
fat”). Is this remark the student's problem or the teacher's? If David made the comment privately to the teacher and
is unlikely to repeat it, then maybe it is only the teacher's problem. If he is likely to repeat it to other students or to
Sean himself, however, then maybe the problem is really David's. On the other hand, suppose that a different
student, Sarah, complains repeatedly that classmates refuse to let her into group projects. This is less likely to be
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the teacher’s problem rather than Sarah's: her difficulty may affect her ability to do her own work, but not really
affect the teacher or classmates directly. As you might suspect, too, a problem may sometimes affect several people
at once. David, who criticized Sean, may discover that he offended not only the teacher, but also classmates, who
therefore avoid working with him. At that point the whole class begins to share in some aspect of “the” problem: not
only is David prevented from working with others comfortably, but also classmates and the teacher begin dealing
with bad feelings about David.
Step 2: active, empathetic listening
Diagnosing accurately who really has a problem with a behavior—who “owns” it—is helped by a number of
strategies. One is active listening—attending carefully to all aspects of what a student says and attempting to
understand or empathize as fully as possible, even if you do not agree with what is being said (Cooper & Simonds,
2003). Active listening involves asking questions in order continually to check your understanding. It also involves
encouraging the student to elaborate on his or her remarks, and paraphrasing and summarizing what the student
says in order to check your perceptions of what is said. It is important not to move too fast toward solving the
problem with advice, instructions, or scolding, even if these are responses that you might, as a teacher, feel
responsible for making. Responding too soon with solutions can shut down communication prematurely, and leave
you with inaccurate impressions of the source or nature of the problem.
Step 3: assertive discipline and I-messages
Once you have listened well to the student’s point of view, it helps to frame your responses and comments in
terms of how the student’s behavior affects you in particular, especially in your role as the teacher. The comments
should have several features:
• They should be assertive—neither passive and apologetic, nor unnecessarily hostile and aggressive (Cantor,
1996). State the problem as matter-of-factly as possible: “Joe, you are talking while I’m explaining
something”, instead of either “Joe, do you think you could be quiet now?” or “Joe, be quiet!”
• The comments should emphasize I-messages (Gordon, 1981), which are comments that focus on how the
problem behavior is affecting the teacher’s ability to teach, as well as how the behavior makes the teacher
feel. They are distinct from you-messages, which focus on evaluating the mistake or problem which the
student has created. An I-message might be, “Your talking is making it hard for me to remember what I’m
trying to say.” A you-message might be, “Your talking is rude.”
• The comments should encourage the student to think about the effects of his or her actions on others—a
strategy that in effect encourages the student to consider the ethical implications of the actions (Gibbs,
2003). Instead of simply saying: “When you cut in line ahead of the other kids, that was not fair to them”,
you can try saying, “How do you think the other kids feel when you cut in line ahead of them?”
Step 4: negotiation
The first three steps describe ways of interacting that are desirable, but also fairly specific in scope and limited in
duration. But in themselves, they may not be enough when conflict persists over time and develops a number of
complications or confusing features. A student may persist in being late for class, for example, in spite of efforts by
the teacher to modify this behavior. Or two students may repeatedly speak rudely to each other, even though the
teacher has mediated this conflict in the past. Or a student may fail to complete homework, time after time. Because
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these problems develop over time, and because they may involve repeated disagreements, they can eventually
become stressful for the teacher, the student, and any classmates who may be affected. Their persistence can tempt
a teacher simply to dictate a resolution—a decision that can leave everyone feeling defeated, including the teacher.
Often in these situations it is better to negotiate a solution, which means systematically discussing options and
compromising on one if possible. Although negotiation always requires time and effort, it is often less time or effort
than continuing to cope with the original problem, and the results can be beneficial to everyone. A number of
experts on conflict resolution have suggested strategies for negotiating with students about persistent problems
(Davidson & Wood, 2004). The suggestions vary in detail, but usually include some combination of the steps we
have already discussed above, along with a few others:
• Decide as accurately as possible what the problem is. Usually this step involves a lot of the active listening
described above.
• Brainstorm possible solutions, and then consider their effectiveness. Remember to include students in
this step; otherwise you end up simply imposing a solution on others, which is not what negotiation is
supposed to achieve.
• If possible, choose a solution by consensus. Complete agreement on the choice may not be possible, but
strive for it as best you can. Remember that taking a vote may be a democratic, acceptable way to settle
differences in some situations, but if feelings are running high, voting does not work as well. In that case
voting may simply allow the majority to impose its will on the minority, leaving the underlying conflict
unresolved.
• Pay attention to how well the solution works after it is underway. For many reasons, things may not work
out the way you or students hope or expect. You may need to renegotiate the solution at a later time.
Keeping management issues in perspective
There are two primary messages from this chapter. One is that management issues are important, complex, and
deserving of serious attention. The other is that strategies exist that can reduce, if not eliminate, management
problems when and if they occur. We have explained some of those strategies—including some intended to prevent
problems and others intended to remedy problems.
But there is an underlying assumption about management that this chapter emphasized fully: that good
classroom management is not an end in itself, but a means for creating a classroom where learning happens and
students are motivated. Amidst the stresses of handling a problem behavior, there is a risk of losing sight of this
idea. Telling a student to be quiet is never a goal in itself, for example; it is desirable only because (or when) it
allows all students to hear the teacher’s instructions or classmates’ spoken comments, or because it allows students
to concentrate on their work. There may actually be moments when students' keeping quiet is not appropriate, such
as during a “free choice” time in an elementary classroom or during a group work task in a middle school
classroom. As teachers, we need to keep this perspective firmly in mind. Classroom management should serve
students’ learning, and not the other way around. The next chapter is based on this idea, because it discusses ways
not just to set the stage for learning, as this chapter has done, but ways to plan directly for students' learning.
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Chapter summary
Classroom management is the coordination of lessons and activities to make learning as productive as possible.
It is important because classrooms are complex and somewhat unpredictable, because students respond to
teachers’ actions in diverse ways, and because society requires that students attend school. There are two major
features of management: preventing problems before they occur and responding to them after they occur. Many
management problems can be prevented by attending to how classroom space is used, by establishing daily
procedures, routines, and rules, by pacing and structuring activities appropriately, and by communicating the
importance of learning and of positive behavior to students and parents. There are several ways of dealing with a
management problem after it occurs, and the choice depends on the nature of the problem. A teacher can simply
ignore a misbehavior, gesture or cue students nonverbally, rely on natural and logical consequences, or engage
conflict resolution strategies. Whatever tactics the teacher uses, it is important to keep in mind their ultimate
purpose: to make learning possible and effective.
On the Internet
<www.theteachersguide.com/ClassManagement.htm> This is part of a larger website for teachers
containing resources of all kinds. This section—about classroom management—has several articles with very “nuts
and bolts” tips about management. You may also find their page of resources for substitute teachers useful.
<www.teachnet.com> Another website for teachers with lots of resources of all kinds. A section called
“Power Tools” has dozens of brief articles about various aspects of classroom management.
Key terms Overlapping
Portfolio
Active listening Problem ownership
Classroom management Procedures
Conflict resolution Ripple effect
I-messages Rules
Learning environment Withitness
Logical consequences
Natural consequences
Negotiation
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8. The nature of classroom
communication
“Be sincere; be brief; be seated.”
(Franklin Delano Roosevelt)
Franklin Roosevelt was a former president of the United States, and he advised being brief and sincere when
communicating. In advising to be seated, he was being somewhat more indirect; perhaps he was suggesting that
conversation and dialog would be improved by reducing the power differences between individuals. If so, he was
giving good advice, though perhaps it was also a bit misleading in its simplicity. As teachers, we face almost
continual talk at school, supplemented by ample amounts of nonverbal communication—gestures, facial
expressions, and other “body language”. Often the talk involves many people at once, or even an entire class, and
individuals have to take turns speaking while also listening to others having their turns, or sometimes ignoring the
others if a conversation does not concern them. As the teacher, therefore, you find yourself playing an assortment of
roles when communicating in classrooms: Master of Ceremonies, referee—and of course source of new knowledge.
Your challenge is to sort the roles out so that you are playing the right ones in the right combinations at the right
times. As you learn to do this, interestingly, much of your communication with students will indeed acquire the
qualities recommended by Franklin Roosevelt. Often, you will indeed be more sincere and brief, and you will find
that minimizing power differences between you and students is a good idea.
In this chapter we look at how you might begin to move toward these goals. We describe briefly several major
features of classroom communication that distinguish it from communication in other familiar situations. Then we
explain several techniques, both verbal and nonverbal, that contribute to effective communication, and describe
how these manifest themselves in several common activity settings, which we call structures of participation. As
you will see, how an activity is organized—its structure of participation—has a major effect on how students
communicate with each other and with the teacher.
Communication in classrooms vs communication elsewhere
Classroom events are often so complex that just talking with students can become confusing. It helps to think of
the challenge as a problem in communication—or as one expert put it, of “who says what to whom, and with
what effect” (Lasswell, 1964). In classrooms, things often do not happen at an even pace or in a logical order, or
with just the teacher and one student interacting while others listen or wait patiently. While such moments do
occur, events may sometimes instead be more like a kaleidoscope of overlapping interactions, disruptions, and
decision—even when activities are generally going well. One student finishes a task while another is still only half-
way done. A third student looks like she is reading, but she may really be dreaming. You begin to bring her back on
task by speaking to her, only to be interrupted by a fourth student with a question about an assignment. While you
answer the fourth student, a fifth walks in with a message from the office requiring a response; so the bored (third)
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8. The nature of classroom communication
student is overlooked awhile longer. Meanwhile, the first student—the one who finished the current task—now
begins telling a joke to a sixth student, just to pass the time. You wonder, “Should I speak now to the bored, quiet
reader or to the joke-telling student? Or should I move on with the lesson?” While you are wondering this, a
seventh student raises his hand with a question, and so on.
One way to manage situations like these is to understand and become comfortable with the key features of
communication that are characteristic of classrooms. One set of features has to do with the functions or purposes of
communication, especially the balance among talk related to content, to procedures, and to controlling behavior.
Another feature has to do with the nature of nonverbal communication—how it supplements and sometimes even
contradicts what is said verbally. A third feature has to do with the unwritten expectations held by students and
teachers about how to participate in particular kinds of class activities—what we will later call the structure of
participation.
Functions of talk: content, procedures, and behavior control
Classrooms are different from many other group situations in that communication serves a unique combination
of three purposes at once: content, procedures, or behavior control (Wells, 2006). Content talk focuses on what is
being learned; it happens when a teacher or student states or asks about an idea or concept, for example, or when
someone explains or elaborates on some bit of new knowledge (Burns & Myhill, 2004). Usually content talk relates
in some obvious way to the curriculum or to current learning objectives, as when a teacher tells a high school
history class, “As the text explains, there were several major causes of the American Civil War.” But content talk can
also digress from the current learning objectives; a first-grade student might unexpectedly bring a caterpillar to
school and ask about how it transforms into a butterfly.
Procedural talk, as its name implies, is about administrative rules or routines needed to accomplish tasks in a
classroom. It happens, for example, when the teacher says, “When you are done with your spelling books, put them
in the bins at the side of the room”, or when a student asks, “Do you want us to print our names at the top of page?”
Procedural talk provides information that students need to coordinate their activities in what can be a relatively
crowded space—the classroom—and under conditions in which time may be relatively short or tightly scheduled. It
generally keeps activities organized and flowing smoothly. Procedural talk is not primarily about removing or
correcting unwanted behavior, although certain administrative procedures might sometimes annoy a particular
student, or students might sometimes forget to follow a procedure. Instead it is intended to provide the guidance
that students need to coordinate with each other and with the teacher.
Control talk is about preventing or correcting misbehaviors when they occur, particularly when the
misbehaviors are not because of ignorance of procedures. It happens, for example, when a teacher says, “Jill, you
were talking when you should have been listening”, or “Jason, you need to work on your math instead of doodling.”
Most control talk originates with the teacher, but students sometimes engage in it with each other, if not with the
teacher. One student may look at a nearby classmate who is whispering out of turn and quietly say, “Shhh!” in an
attempt to silence the behavior. Or a student may respond to being teased by a classmate by saying simply, “Stop
it!” Whether originating from the teacher or a student, control talk may not always be fully effective. But its purpose
is, by definition, to influence or control inappropriate behavior. Since control talk is obviously important for
managing class effectively, we discussed it at length in Chapter 7.
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What can make classroom discourse confusing is that two of its functions—content and procedures—often
become combined with the third, control talk, in the same remark or interaction. A teacher may ask a content-
related question, for example, as a form of control talk. She may, for example, ask, “Jeremy, what did you think of
the film we just saw?” The question is apparently about content, but the teacher may also be trying to end Jeremy’s
daydreaming and to get him back on task—an example of control talk. Or a teacher may state a rule: “When one
person is talking, others need to be listening.” The rule is procedural in that it helps to coordinate classroom
dialogue, but it may also control inattentive behavior. Double functions like these can sometimes confuse students
because of their ambiguity, and lead to misunderstandings between certain students and teachers. A student may
hear only the content or procedural function of a teacher’s comment, and miss an implied request or command to
change inappropriate behavior (Collins & Michaels, 2006). But double functions can also help lessons to flow
smoothly by minimizing the disruption of attending to a minor behavior problem and by allowing more continuous
attention to content or procedures.
Verbal, nonverbal, and unintended communication
Another way to understand classroom communication is to distinguish verbal from nonverbal communication,
and intended both unintended forms of communication. As the name suggests, verbal communication is a
message or information expressed in words, either orally or in writing. Classrooms obviously have lots of verbal
communication; it happens every time a teacher explains a bit of content, asks a question, or writes information or
instructions on the chalkboard. Non-verbal communications are gestures or behaviors that convey
information, often simultaneously with spoken words (Guerrero, 2006). It happens, for example, when a teacher
looks directly at students to emphasize a point or to assert her authority, or when the teacher raises her eyebrows to
convey disapproval or disagreement. Nonverbal behaviors are just as plentiful as verbal communications, and while
they usually add to a current verbal message, they sometimes can also contradict it. A teacher can state verbally,
“This math lesson will be fun”, and a nonverbal twinkle in the eye can send the confirm message nonverbally. But a
simultaneous nonverbal sigh or slouch may send the opposite message—that the lesson will not, in fact be fun, in
spite of the teacher’s verbal claim.
Whether verbal or nonverbal, however, classroom communications often convey more meaning than is
intended. Unintended communications are the excess meanings of utterances; they are the messages received
by students without the teacher’s awareness or desire. A teacher may say, “This section of the text won’t be on the
test, but read it anyway for background.” But a student may instead hear the message, “Do not read this section of
the text.” What is heard is not what the teacher intended to be heard.
Like many public settings that involve a diversity of people, classrooms tend to rely heavily on explicit, verbal
communication, while at the same time recognizing and allowing nonverbal communications to occur (Neill, 1991).
This priority accounts for the characteristically businesslike style of teacher talk—a style that we discuss in detail in
the next chapter. A major reason for relying on an explicit, businesslike verbal style is that diversity among
individuals increases the chances of their misinterpreting each other. Because of differences in background, the
partners may differ in how they expect to structure conversation as well as other kinds of dialog.
Misunderstandings may result—sometimes without the partners being able to pinpoint the cause. Later in this
chapter we suggest how to minimize these problems.
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Effective verbal communication
Communicating effectively requires using all forms of classroom talk in combinations appropriate for particular
utterances and interactions. In various places earlier in this book, we have suggested ways of doing so, though in
those places we usually did not frame the discussion around the term communication as such.
Effective content talk
In Chapter 8, for example, we suggested ways of talking about content so that it is most likely to be understood
clearly, but in that chapter we described these as instructional strategies. In explaining ideas, for example, whether
briefly or as a extended lecture, we pointed out that it helps to offer, in advance, organizing ideas, to relate new
content to prior knowledge, and to organize and elaborate on new information. In the same chapter, we also
suggested strategies about content talk intended for students, so that students understand their own thinking as
well as possible. We especially highlighted two ways of learning: inquiry learning and cooperative learning. Table
18summarizes instructional strategies both for students and for teachers, and indicates how they contribute to
effective verbal communication about content.
Table 18: Strategies for supporting content talk
Content talk by teachers
Strategy Definition How it helps communication
Using advance organizers Statements or ideas that give a Orients students’ attention to
concise overview of new material new ideas about to be learned;
assists in understanding and
remembering new material
Relating new material to prior Explicit connections of new ideas Facilitates discussion of new
knowledge
to students’ existing knowledge material by making it more
meaningful to students
Elaborating and extending new Explanations of new ideas in full, Avoids ambiguities and
information complete terms misunderstandings about new ideas
or concepts
Organizing new information Providing and following a clear Assists in understanding and
structure when explaining new remembering new material
material
Content talk by students
Inquiry learning Students pursue problems that To formulate and and investigate
Cooperative learning they help to formulate for a problem, students need to express
themselves clearly what they wish to find out.
Students work in small groups to To work together, students need
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solve a common problem or task to explain ideas and questions to
fellow students clearly.
Table 19: Major strategies of effective procedural and control talk
These strategies are also discussed in Chapter 7 as features of classroom management, rather than of
communication. Note, too, that the difference between procedural and content talk is arbitrary to some extent; in
many situations one kind of talk serves the needs of the other kind.
Strategy for procedural talk Strategy for control talk
Creating and discussing procedures for daily routines Creating and discussing classroom rules of
appropriate behavior
Announcing transitions between activities Clarifying problem ownership
Providing clear instructions and guidance for Listening actively and empathetically
activities
Reminding students periodically of procedures for Using I-messages
completing a task
Effective procedural and control talk
In addition to communicating about content, teachers need to communicate procedures and expectations about
appropriate classroom behavior. In Chapter 7 we described quite a few ways to communicate with students about
these matters, though, in that chapter we did not refer to them as methods of communication, but as methods of
classroom management, of creating a positive learning environment, and of resolving conflicts in the class. Table 19
summarizes several of the major strategies described in that chapter.) By framing communication in these ways, we
called attention to their importance as forms of communication. As we pointed out, procedural talk and control talk
matter are used in teaching simply because clear procedures and appropriate classroom behavior are necessary
students are to learn.
Effective nonverbal communication
In spite of their importance, words are not the only way that teachers and students communicate. Gestures and
behaviors convey information as well, often supporting a teacher’s words, but sometimes also contradicting them.
Students and teachers express themselves nonverbally in all conversations, so freely and automatically in fact that
this form of communication can easily be overlooked.
Eye contact
One important nonverbal behavior is eye contact, which is the extent and timing of when a speaker looks
directly at the eyes of the listener. In conversations between friends of equal status, for example, most native
speakers of English tend to look directly at the speaker when listening, but to avert their gaze when speaking
(Kleinke, 1986). Re-engaging eye contact, in fact, often signals that a speaker is about to finish a turn and is inviting
a response from the listener.
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But conversations follow different rules if they involve someone of greater authority talking with someone of
lesser authority, such as between a teacher and a student. In that case, the person in authority signals greater status
by gazing directly at the listener almost continuously, whether listening or speaking. This alternate pattern can
sometimes prove awkward if either party is not expecting it. For students unused to continuous eye contact, it can
feel like the teacher is staring excessively, intrusively, or inappropriately; an ironic effect can be for the student to
feel more self-conscious rather than more engaged, as intended. For similar reasons, inexperienced or first-time
teachers can also feel uncomfortable with gazing at students continuously. Nevertheless research about the effects
of eye contact suggests that it may help anyone, whether a student or teacher, to remember what they are seeing
and hearing (Mason, Hood, & Macrae, 2004).
Communication problems result less from eye contact as such than from differences in expectations about eye
contact. If students’ expectations differ very much from the teacher’s, one party may misinterpret the other party’s
motivations. Among some non-white ethnic groups, for example, eye contact follows a pattern that reverses the
conventional white, English-language pattern: they tend to look more intently at a partner when talking, and avert
gaze when listening (Razack, 1998). The alternative pattern works perfectly well as long as both parties expect it
and use it. As you might imagine, though, there are problems if the two partners use opposite patterns of eye
contact. In that case one person may interpret a direct gaze as an invitation to start talking, when really it is an
invitation to stop talking. Eventually the conversational partner may find himself interrupting too much, or simply
talking too long at a turn. The converse can also happen: if the first person looks away, the partner may take the
gesture as inviting the partner to keep listening, when really the first person is inviting the partner to start talking.
Awkward gaps between comments may result. In either case, if the conversational partners are a teacher and
student, rapport may deteriorate gradually. In the first case, the teacher may even conclude, wrongly, that the
student is socially inept because the student interrupts so much. In the second case, the teacher may conclude—also
wrongly—that the student is very shy or even lacking in language skill.
To avoid such misunderstandings, a teacher needs to note and remember students’ preferred gaze patterns at
times when students are free to look wherever and at whomever they please. Traditional seats-in-a-row desk
arrangements do not work well for this purpose; as you might suppose, and as research confirms, sitting in rows
makes students more likely to look either at the teacher or to look at nothing in particular (Rosenfeld, Lambert, &
Black, 1985; Razack, 1998). Almost any other seating arrangement, such as sitting in clusters or in a circle,
encourages freer patterns of eye contact. More comfortable eye contact, in turn, makes for verbal communication
that is more comfortable and productive.
Wait time
Another important nonverbal behavior is wait time, which is the pause between conversational turns. Wait
time marks when a conversational turn begins or ends. If a teacher asks a question, for example, the wait time both
allows and prompts students to formulate an appropriate response. Studies on classroom interaction generally
show that wait times in most classes are remarkably short—less than one second (Good & Brophy, 2002).
Unfortunately wait times this short can actually interfere with most students’ thinking; in one second, most
students either cannot decide what to say or can only recall a simple, automatic fact (Tobin, 1987). Increasing wait
times to several seconds has several desirable effects: students give longer, more elaborate responses, they express
more complex ideas, and a wider range of students participate in discussion. For many teachers, however, learning
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to increase wait time this much takes conscious effort, and may feel uncomfortable at first. (A trick, if you are trying
to wait longer, is to count silently to five before calling on anyone.) After a few weeks of practice, discomfort with
longer wait times usually subsides, and the academic benefits of waiting become more evident.
As with eye contact, preferred wait times vary both among individuals and among groups of students, and the
differences in expected wait times can sometimes lead to awkward conversations. Though there are many
exceptions, girls tend to prefer longer wait times than boys—perhaps contributing to an impression that girls are
unnecessarily shy or that boys are self-centered or impulsive. Students from some ethnic and cultural groups tend
to prefer a much longer wait time than is typically available in a classroom, especially when English is the student’s
second language (Toth, 2004). When a teacher converses with a member of such a group, therefore, what feels to
the student like a respectful pause may seem like hesitation or resistance to the teacher. Yet other cultural groups
actually prefer overlapping comments—a sort of negative wait time. In these situations, one conversational partner
will begin at exactly the same instant as the previous speaker, or even before the speaker has finished (Chami-
Sather & Kretschmer, 2005). The negative wait time is meant to signal lively interest in the conversation. A teacher
who is used to a one-second gap between comments, however, may regard overlapping comments as rude
interruptions, and may also have trouble getting chances to speak.
Even though longer wait times are often preferable, they do not always work well with certain individuals or
groups. For teachers, the most widely useful advice is to match wait time to the students’ preferences as closely as
possible, regardless of whether these are slower or faster than what the teacher normally prefers. To the extent that
a teacher and students can match each other’s pace, they will communicate more comfortably and fully, and a larger
proportion of students will participate in discussions and activities. As with eye contact, observing students’
preferred wait times is easier in situations that give students some degree of freedom about when and how to
participate, such as open-ended discussions or informal conversations throughout the day.
Social distance
When two people interact, the physical space or distance between them—their social distance—often indicates
something about how intimate or personal their relationship is (Noller, 2006). Social distance also affects how
people describe others and their actions; someone who habitually is more distant physically is apt to be described in
more general, abstract terms than someone who often approaches more closely (Fujita, et al., 2006). In white
American society, a distance of approximately half a meter to a meter is what most people prefer when talking face-
to-face with a personal friend. The closer end of this range is more common if the individuals turn sideways to each
other, as when riding on an elevator; but usually the closest distances are reserved for truly intimate friendships,
such as between spouses. If the relationship is more businesslike, individuals are more likely to situate themselves
in the range of approximately one meter to a three meters. This is a common distance, for example, for a teacher
talking with a student or talking with a small group of students. For still more formal interactions, individuals tend
to allow more than three meters; this distance is typical, for example, when a teacher speaks to an entire class.
Just as with eye contact and wait time, however, individuals differ in the distances they prefer for these different
levels of intimacy, and complications happen if two people expect different distances for the same kind of
relationship. A student who prefers a shorter social distance than her partner can seem pushy or overly familiar to
the partner. The latter, in turn, can seem aloof or unfriendly—literally “distant”. The sources of these effects are
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easy to overlook since by definition the partners never discuss social distance verbally, but they are real. The best
remedy, again, is for teachers to observe students’ naturally occurring preferences as closely as possible, and to
respect them as much as possible: students who need to be closer should be allowed to be closer, at least within
reasonable limits, and those who need to be more distant should be allowed to be more distant.
Structures of participation: effects on communication
Many class activities take on patterns that guide communication in ways that class members learn to expect,
often without even being reminded. Each pattern is a participation structure, a set of rights and responsibilities
expected from students and teacher during an activity. Sometimes the teacher announces or explains the rights and
responsibilities explicitly, though often they are just implied by the actions of class members, and individual
students learn them simply by watching others. A lecture, for example, has a particular participation structure:
students are responsible for listening, for raising a hand to speak, and for keeping comments brief and relevant if
called on. The teacher, on the other hand, has the right to talk at length, but also the responsibility to keep the talk
relevant and comprehensible.
In principle, a host of participation structures are possible, but just a handful account for most class activities
(Cazden, 2001). Here are some of the most common:
• Lecturing—the teacher talks and students listen. Maybe students take notes, but maybe not.
• Questions and answers—the teacher asks a series of questions, calling on one student at a time to answer
each of them. Students raise their hands to be recognized and give answers that are brief and “correct”. In
earlier times this participation structure was sometimes called recitation.
• Discussion—the teacher briefly describes a topic or problem and invites students to comment on it.
Students say something relevant about the topic, but also are supposed to respond to previous speakers if
possible.
• Group work—the teacher assigns a general task, and a small group of students work out the details of
implementing it. The teacher may check on the group’s progress before they finish, but not necessarily.
Each of these structures influences how communication among teachers and students tends to occur; in fact
each is itself sort of an implied message about how, when, and with whom to interact. To see how this influence
works, look in the next sections at how the participation structures affected classroom communication for one of us
authors (Kelvin Seifert) as he taught one particular topic—children’s play—over a twenty-year period. The topic was
part of a university-level course for future teachers. During this time, Kelvin’s goals about the topic remained the
same: to stimulate students’ thinking about the nature and purposes of play. But over time he tried several different
structures of participation, and students’ ways of communicating changed as a result.
Lecture
The first time Kelvin taught about children’s play, he lectured about it. He used this structure of participation
not because he believed on principle that it was the best, but because it was convenient and used widely by his
fellow university teachers. An excerpt from Kelvin’s lecture notes is shown in Table 20, and gives a sense of what he
covered at that time.
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In some ways the lecture proved effective: Kelvin covered the material efficiently (in about 20 minutes), related
the topic to other ones in the course, defined and explained all key terms clearly, and did his best to relate the
material to what he thought were students’ own interests. These were all marks of good lecturing (Christensen,
2006). Students were mostly quiet during the lecture, but since only about one-third of them took notes, Kelvin had
to assume that the rest had committed the material to memory while listening. The students quietness bothered
him a little, but as a newcomer to university teaching, Kelvin was relieved simply to get through the class without
embarrassment or active resistance from the students.
But there were also some negative signs. In spite of their courtesy, few students lingered after class to talk about
children’s play or to ask questions. Worse yet, few students chose children’s play as a term paper topic, even though
it might have made a highly interesting and enjoyable one. On the final exam few seemed able to relate concepts
about play to their own experiences as teachers or leaders of recreational activities.
There was an even more subtle problem. The lecture about play focused overtly on a topic (play) that praised
action, intrinsic motivation, and self-choice. But by presenting these ideas as a lecture, Kelvin also implied an
opposite message unintentionally: that learning is something done passively, and that it follows an intellectual path
set only by the teacher. Even the physical layout of the classroom sent this message—desks faced forward, as if to
remind students to look only at the person lecturing. These are features of lecturing, as Kelvin later discovered, that
are widely criticized in educational research (McKeachie & Svinicki, 2005; Benedict & Hoag, 2004). To some
students the lecture format might even have implied that learning is equivalent to daydreaming, since both
activities require sitting quietly and showing little expression. An obvious solution might have been to invite
students to comment from time to time during the lecture, relating the topic to experiences and knowledge of their
own. But during Kelvin’s first year of teaching about play, he did little of this. The lecture medium, ironically,
contradicted the lecture message, or at least it assumed that students would think actively about the material
without ever speaking.
Questions and answers
Because of these problems, Kelvin modified his approach after a few years of teaching to include more asking of
questions which students were invited to answer. This turned the lecture on children’s play into something more
like a series of explanations of key ideas, interrupted by asking students to express their beliefs, knowledge, or
experience about children’s play. Kelvin’s preparation notes changes in appearance as a result (see Table 21).
Asking questions and inviting brief responses was reassuring because it gave indications of whether students were
listening and understanding the material. Questions served both to motivate students to listen and to assess how
much and how well they knew the material. In this regard Kelvin was using a form of communication that was and
continues to be very popular with many teachers (Cazden, 2001).
But there were also new challenges and problems. For one thing the topic of children’s play took longer to cover
than before, since Kelvin now had to allow time for students to respond to questions. This fact forced him to leave
out a few points that he used to include. More serious, though, was his impression that students often did not listen
to each other’s responses; they only listened carefully to Kelvin, the teacher. The interactions often become simply
two-way exchanges between the teacher and one student at a time: Kelvin asked, one student responded, Kelvin
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acknowledged or (sometimes) evaluated. (Mehan, 1979; Richards, 2006). Some of the exchanges could in principle
have happened just as easily without any classmates present.
In general students still had little control over the course of discussion. Kelvin wondered if he was controlling
participation too much—in fact whether the question-and-answer strategy attempted the impossible task of
controlling students’ very thought processes. By asking most of the questions himself and allowing students only
brief responses, was Kelvin trying to insure e that students thought about children’s play in the “right” way, his
way? To give students more influence in discussion, it seemed that Kelvin would have to become less concerned
about precisely what ideas about children’s play he covered.
Classroom discussion
After several more years of teaching, Kelvin quit lectures altogether, even ones interspersed with questions and
answers. He began simply leading general discussions about children’s play. The change again affected his planning
for this topic. Instead of outlining detailed content, he now just made concise notes that listed issues about
children’s play that students needed to consider (some of the notes are shown in Table 23). The shift in
participation structure led to several major changes in communication between teacher and students as well as
among students. Since students spoke more freely than before, it became easier to see whether they cared about the
topic. Now, too, more students seemed motivated to think and learn about children’s play; quite a few selected this
topic, for example, for their term projects. Needless to say, these changes were all to the good.
But there were also changes that limited the effectiveness of classroom communication, even though students
were nominally freer to speak than ever. Kelvin found, for example, that certain students spoke more than their
share of the time—almost too freely, in fact, in effect preventing more hesitant students from speaking. Sometimes,
too, it seemed as if certain students did not listen to others’ comments, but instead just passed the time waiting for
their turn to speak, their hands propped permanently in the air. Meanwhile there were still others who passed the
time apparently hoping not to speak; they were busy doodling or staring out the window. Since the precise focus of
discussion was no longer under Kelvin’s control, furthermore, discussions often did not cover all of the ideas about
children’s play that Kelvin considered important. On one occasion, for example, he meant for students to discuss
whether play is always motivated intrinsically, but instead they ended up talking about whether play can really be
used to teach every possible subject area. In itself the shift in focus was not bad, but it did make Kelvin wonder
whether he was covering the material adequately. In having these misgivings, as it happened, he was supported by
other educators who have studied the effects of class discussions on learning (McKeatchie & Svinciki, 2005).
Group work
By the time he had taught about children’s play for twenty years, Kelvin had developed enough concerns about
discussion as a communication strategy that he shifted approach again. This time he began using a form of
collaborative group work: small teams of students carrying out projects on aspects of children’s play that
interested them, making observations of children at play, reporting on their results to the class, and writing a
common report about their work. (Kelvin’s work guidelines given to the groups are shown in Table 22.) Kelvin
hoped that by giving students a common focus, communication among them would improve. Conversations would
deal with the tasks at hand, students would necessarily listen to each other, and no one could afford either to
dominate talk excessively or to fall silent.
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In some ways these benefits did take place. With a bit of encouragement from Kelvin, students listened to each
other more of the time than before. They also diversified their tasks and responsibilities within each group, and
they seemed to learn from each other in the course of preparing projects. Participation in the unit about children’s
play reached an all-time high in Kelvin’s twenty years of teaching at university. Yet even still there were problems.
Some groups seemed much more productive than others, and observing them closely suggested that differences
were related to ease of communication within groups. In some groups, one or two people dominated conversations
unduly. If they listened to others at all, they seemed immediately to forget that they had done so and proceeded to
implement their own ideas. In other groups, members all worked hard, but they did not often share ideas or news
about each other’s progress; essentially they worked independently in spite of belonging to the group. Here, too,
Kelvin’s experience corroborated other, more systematic observations of communication within classroom work
groups (Slavin, 1995). When all groups were planning at the same time, furthermore, communication broke down
for a very practical reason: the volume of sound in the classroom got so high that even simple conversation became
difficult, let alone the expression of subtle or complex ideas.
Communication styles in the classroom
Teachers and students have identifiable styles of talking to each other that linguists call a register. A register is
a pattern of vocabulary, grammar, and expressions or comments that people associate with a social role. A familiar
example is the “baby-talk” register often used to speak to an infant. Its features—simple repeated words and
nonsense syllables, and exaggerated changes in pitch—mark the speaker as an adult and mark the listener as an
infant. The classroom language register works the same way; it helps indicate who the teacher is and who the
student is. Teachers and students use the register more in some situations than in others, but its use is common
enough that most people in our society have no trouble recognizing it when they hear it (Cazden, 2001). In the
following scene, for example, the speakers are labeled only with letters of the alphabet; yet figuring out who is the
teacher and who are the students is not difficult:
A: All right now, I want your eyes up here. All eyes on me, please. B, are you ready to work? We are
going to try a new kind of math problem today. It’s called long division. Does anyone know what
long division is? C, what do you think it is?
C: Division with bigger numbers?
A: Any other ideas? D?
E (not D): Division by two digits.
A: …I only call on people who raise their hands. D, can you help with the answer?
D: Division with remainders.
A: Close. Actually you’re both partly right.
In this scene Person A must surely be the teacher because he or she uses a lot of procedural and control talk, and
because he or she introduces a new curriculum topic, long division. The other Persons (B, C, D, and E) must be
students because they only respond to questions, and because they individually say relatively little compared to
Person A.
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In general, effective classroom communication depends on understanding how features of the classroom talk
register like these operate during actual class times. In the following sections therefore we describe details of
classroom talk, and then follow with suggestions about how to use the register as effectively as possible. In both of
these sections we assume that the better the communication, the better the learning and thinking displayed by
students. For convenience we divide classroom talk into two parts, teacher talk and student talk.
How teachers talk
Although teacher talk varies somewhat with the tasks or purposes at hand, it also has uniformities that occur
across a range of situations. Using detailed observations of discourse in science activities, for example, Jay Lemke
identified all of the following strategies from observations of teachers’ classroom talk (1990). Each strategy
simultaneously influences the course of discussion and focuses students’ attention, and in these ways also helps
indirectly to insure appropriate classroom behavior:
• Nominating, terminating, and interrupting speakers: Teachers often choose who gets to speak. (“Jose,
what do you think about X?”). On the other hand, they often bring an end to a student’s turn at speaking or
even interrupt the student before he or she finishes. (“Thanks; we need to move on now.”)
• Marking importance or irrelevance: Teachers sometimes indicate that an idea is important (“That’s a good
idea, Lyla.”). On the other hand, they sometimes also indicate that an idea is not crucial or important
(“Your right, but that’s not quite the answer I was looking for.”), or fully relevant (“We’re talking about the
book Wuthering Heights, not the movie that you may have seen.”). Marking importance and relevance
obviously helps a teacher to reinforce key content. But the strategy can also serve to improve relationships
among students if the teacher deliberately marks or highlights an idea offered by a quiet or shy student
(O’Connor & Michaels, 1996; Cohen, et al., 2004). In that case marking importance can build both a
student’s confidence and the student’s status in the eyes of classmates.
• Signaling boundaries between activities: Teachers declare when an activity is over and a new one is
starting—an example of the procedural talk that we discussed earlier. (“We need to move on. Put away your
spelling and find your math books.”) In addition to clarifying procedures, though, signaling boundaries can
also insure appropriate classroom behavior. Ending an activity can sometimes help restore order among
students who have become overly energetic, and shifting to a new activity can sometimes restore motivation
to students who have become bored or tired.
• Asking “test” questions and evaluating students’ responses: Teachers often ask test questions—questions to
which they already know the answer. Then they evaluate the quality or correctness of the students’ answers
(Teacher: “How much is 6 x 7 ?” Student: “42.” Teacher: “That’s right.”). Test questions obviously help
teachers to assess students’ learning, but they also mark the teacher as the expert in the classroom, and
therefore as a person entitled to control the flow of discourse.
There are additional features of teacher-talk that are not unique to teachers. These primarily function to make
teachers’ comments more comprehensible, especially when spoken to a group, but they also help to mark a person
who uses them as a teacher (Cazden, 2001; Black, 2004):
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• Exaggerated changes in pitch: When busy teaching, teachers tend to exaggerate changes in the pitch of
their voice—reminiscent of the “sing-song” style of adults when directing speech to infants. Exaggerated
pitch changes are especially characteristic of teachers of young students, but they happen at all grade levels.
• Careful enunciation: In class teachers tend to speak more slowly, clearly, and carefully than when
conversing with a friend. The style makes a speaker sound somewhat formal, especially when combined
with formal vocabulary and grammar, mentioned next.
• Formal vocabulary and grammar: Teachers tend to use vocabulary and grammar that is more formally
polite and correct, and that uses relatively few slang or casual expressions. (Instead of saying “Get out your
stuff”, they more likely say, “Please get out your materials.”) The formality creates a businesslike distance
between teachers and students—hopefully one conducive to getting work done, rather than one that seems
simply cold or uncaring. The touch of formality also makes teachers sound a bit more intelligent or
intellectual than in casual conversation, and in this way reinforces their authority in the classroom.
How students talk
Children and youth also use a characteristic speech register when they are in a classroom and playing the role of
students in the presence of a teacher. Their register—student talk—differs somewhat from the teacher’s because of
their obvious differences in responsibilities, levels of knowledge, and relationships with each other and with the
teacher. Student-talk and teacher-talk are similar in that both involve language strategies that guide content and
procedures, and that sometimes seek to limit the inappropriate behavior of others. Compared to teachers’, though,
students’ language strategies often pursue these goals a bit more indirectly.
• Agenda enforcement: Sometimes students interrupt a discussion to ask about or remind others, and
especially the teacher, of an agreed-on agenda. If the teacher tells students to open their text to an incorrect
page, for example, a student may raise her hand to correct the teacher—or even do so without raising a
hand. This communication strategy is one of more public, direct ways that students influence activities in
the classroom, but its power is limited, since it does not create new activities, but simply returns the class to
activities agreed on previously.
• Digression attempts: During a discussion or activity, a student asks a question or makes a statement that is
not relevant to the task at hand. While the teacher is leading students in a discussion of a story that they
read, for example, a student raises his hand and asks, “Mr X, when does recess begin?”
• Side talk: One student talks to another student, either to be sociable (“Did you see that movie last week?”)
or to get information needed for the current assigned task (“What page are we on?”). Sometimes side talk
also serves to control or limit fellow students’ behavior, and in this way functions like control-talk by
teachers (as when a student whispers, “Shhh! I’m trying to listen” or “Go ahead and ask her!”). The ability
of such talk to influence classmates’ behavior is real, but limited, since students generally do not have as
much authority as teachers.
• Calling out: A student speaks out of turn without being recognized by the teacher. The student’s comment
may or may not be relevant to the ongoing task or topic, and the teacher may or may not acknowledge or
respond to it. Whether ignored or not, however, calling out may change the direction of a discussion by
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influencing fellow students’ thinking or behavior, or by triggering procedural and control talk by the
teacher. (“Jason, it’s not your turn; I only call on students who raise their hands.”)
• Answering a question with a question: Instead of answering a teacher’s “test” question directly, the
student responds with a question of her own, either for clarification or as a stalling tactic (“Do you mean
X?”). Either way, the effect is to shift the discussion or questioning to content or topics that are safer and
more familiar.
• Silence: The student says nothing in response to a speaker’s comments or to an invitation to speak. The
speaker could be either the teacher or a fellow student. The silence makes the speaker less likely to continue
the current topic, and more likely to seek a new one.
• Eye contact, gaze aversion, and posture: The student looks directly at the teacher while the teacher is
speaking, or else deliberately averts gaze. The student may also adopt any variety of postures while sitting
(sit up straight vs slouching). As we discussed earlier in this chapter, the timing of eye gaze depends partly
on cultural expectations that the student brings to school. But it may also represent a deliberate choice by
the student—a message to the teacher and to classmates. The same can be said about sitting posture. In
classroom situations, listening is conventionally indicated by looking directly at the teacher, and either
sitting up straight or leaning slightly forward. Although these behaviors can be faked, they tend to indicate,
and to be taken as, a show of interest in and acceptance of what a speaker is saying. By engaging in or
avoiding these behaviors, therefore, students can sometimes influence the length and direction of a
discussion or activity.
Using classroom talk to stimulate students’ thinking
The various features of classroom talk characterize the communication of most teachers and students, at least
when they are in a classroom and “doing school”. (Communication outside of school is a different matter: then
teachers as well as students may speak, listen, and behave quite differently!) As you might suppose, the extent and
balance among the features varies depending on grade level, curriculum area, and personalities of students or
teachers. But failing to use a classroom register at all can easily create communication problems. Suppose, for
example, that a teacher never asks informal test questions. In that case the teacher will learn much less than
otherwise about her students’ knowledge of the current material. Then also suppose that a student does not
understand teachers’ questions as test questions. That student may easily respond in ways that seem disrespectful
(Teacher: “How much is 23 x 42?” Student: “I don’t know; how much do you think it is?”) (Bloome, et al., 2005).
The classroom talk register, then, constrains how communication between teachers and students can take place,
but it also gives teachers and students a “language” for talking about teaching and learning. Given this double-
edged reality, how can teachers use the classroom talk register to good advantage? How, in particular, can teachers
communicate in ways that stimulate more and better thinking and discussion? In the next, final section of the
chapter, we offer some suggestions for answering these questions. As you will see, the suggestions often reinforce
each other. They are more like a network of ideas, not a list of priorities to be considered or followed in sequence.
Probing for learner understanding
How do you know whether a student understands what you are saying? One clue, of course, is by whether the
student is looking at and concentrating on you and your comments. But this clue is not foolproof; we have all had
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moments of staring at a speaker while daydreaming, only to realize later that we have not heard anything that the
speaker said. It is sometimes important, therefore, to probe more actively how much students are actually
understanding during lessons or other activities.
Strategies for probing understanding generally involve mixing instruction with conversation (Renshaw, 2004).
In explaining a new topic, for example, you can check for understanding by asking preliminary questions
connecting the topic to students’ prior experiences and knowledge about the topic. Note that this strategy combines
qualities of both instruction and conversation, in the sense that it involves combining “test” questions, to which you
already know the answer, with real questions, to which you do not. When introducing a science lesson about density
to kindergarten children, for example, the teacher might reasonably ask both of the following:
Teacher: Which of these objects that I have do you expect will sink and which ones will float? (A test
question—the teacher already will know the answer.)
Teacher: What other things have you seen that float? Or that sink? (A real question—the teacher is
asking about their experience and does not know the answer.)
By asking both kinds of questions, the teacher scaffolds the children’s learning, or creates a zone of proximal
development, which we described in Chapter 2 as part of Vygotsky’s theory of learning. Note that this zone has two
important features, both of which contribute to children’s thinking. One is that it stimulates students’ thinking (by
asking them questions), and the other is that it creates a supportive and caring atmosphere (by honoring their
personal experiences with real questions). The resulting mix of warmth and challenge can be especially motivating
(Goldstein, 1999).
When warmth and challenge are both present in a discussion, it sometimes even becomes possible to do what
may at first seem risky: calling on individual students randomly without the students’ volunteering to speak. In a
study of “cold calling” as a technique in university class discussions, the researchers found that students did not
find the practice especially stressful or punitive, as the teachers feared they might, and that spontaneous
participation in discussion actually improved as a result (Dallimore, et al., 2006). The benefit was most likely to
happen, however, when combined with gestures of respect for students, such as warning individuals ahead of class
that they might be called on, or allowing students to formulate ideas in small groups before beginning to call on
individuals.
Helping students to articulate their ideas and thinking
The classroom talk register is well designed to help students articulate ideas and thoughts, particularly when
used in the context of discussion. In addition to the conversational probes, like the ones we described in the
previous section, there are other ways to support students in expressing their ideas fully and clearly. One way is for
the teacher to check repeatedly on her own understanding of students’ contributions as a discussion unfolds.
Consider this exchange:
Student (during a class discussion): It seems to me that we all need to learn more climate change.
Teacher: What do you mean by “learn more”? It’s a big topic; what parts of it are you thinking
about?
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Still another strategy for helping students to articulate their ideas is to increase the wait time between when the
teacher asks a question and when the teacher expects a student to answer. As we pointed out earlier, wait times that
are longer than average—longer than one second, that is—give students more time to formulate ideas and therefore
to express themselves more completely and precisely (Good & Brophy, 2002). In addition, longer wait times have
the added advantage of indirection: instead of telling a student to say more, the teacher needs only to wait for the
student to say more.
In general any communication strategy will help students become more articulate if it both allows and invites
further comment and elaboration on their ideas. Taken together, the invitations closely resemble a description of
class discussion, though they can actually be used singly at any time during teaching. Consider these possible
conversational moves:
• The teacher asks the student to explain his initial idea more completely.
• The teacher rephrases a comment made by a student.
• The teacher compares the student’s idea to another, related idea, and asks the student to comment.
• The teacher asks for evidence supporting the student’s idea.
• The teacher asks the student how confident he is in his idea.
• The teacher asks another student to comment on the first student’s idea.
Promoting academic risk-taking and problem-solving
In Chapter 8 we described major features of problem solving, as well as three techniques that assist in solving
problems—problem analysis, working backwards from the beginning, and analogical thinking. While all of the
techniques are helpful, they do not work if a student will not take the risk of attempting a solution to a problem in
the first place. For various reasons students may sometimes avoid such risks, especially if he or she has sometimes
failed at a task in the past, and is therefore concerned about negative evaluations again (Hope & Oliver, 2005).
What can a teacher say or do to counteract such hesitation? There are several strategies, all of which involve
focusing attention on the process of doing an activity rather than on its outcome or evaluation.
• Where possible, call attention to the intrinsic interest or satisfaction of an activity. Consider, for example,
an elementary-level activity of writing a Japanese haiku—a poem with exactly seventeen syllables. This
activity can be satisfying in itself, regardless of how it is evaluated. Casually reminding individuals of this
fact can contribute to students’ sense of ease about writing the haiku and encourage them indirectly to do
better work.
• Minimize the importance of grades where possible. This strategy supports the one above; by giving
students less to worry about, they become freer to experience the intrinsic satisfactions of an activity. In
writing that haiku mentioned above, for example, you can try saying something like: “Don’t worry too much
about your grade; just do the best you can and you will come out well enough in the end.”
• Make sure students know that they have ample time to complete an activity. If students need to rush—or
merely just thinks they do—then they are more likely to choose the safest, most familiar responses possible.
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In writing an amusing story from their early childhood, for example, middle years students may need time
to consider and choose among story possibilities. Then they may need additional time to experiment with
ways of expressing the story in writing. In this case, to make sure students know that they have such time,
try saying something like: “Writing a good story will take time, and you may have to return to it repeatedly.
So we will start working on it today, but do not expect to finish today. We’ll be coming back to it several
times in the next couple of weeks.”
• Show that you value unusual ideas and elegant solutions to problems. When a student does something out
of the ordinary, show your enthusiasm for it. A visually appealing drawing, a well-crafted essay, a different
solution to a math problem than the one you expected—all of these deserve an explicit compliment.
Expressing your interest and respect does more than support the specific achievement. It also expresses a
more general, underlying message that in your classroom, it is safe and rewarding to find and share the
unusual and elegant.
Note that these communication strategies support problem-solving and the related skills of creativity that we
discussed in Chapter 8. In describing creativity in that chapter, in particular, we called attention to the difference
and importance of divergent (open-ended) thinking. As with problem-solving, though, divergent thinking may
seem risky to some students unless they are encouraged to do so explicitly. The strategies for boosting academic
risk-taking can help to communicate this encouragement—that process matters more than product, that there will
be time enough to work, and that you, as teacher, indeed value their efforts.
Promoting a caring community
A caring community is one in which all members have a respected place, in which diversity among
individuals is expected, and in which individuals assist each other with their work or activities wherever
appropriate. Classrooms and even entire schools can be caring communities, though moving them in this direction
takes work on the part of teachers and other school staff (Noddings, 1992, 2004). The key work in promoting a
caring community involves arranging for students to work together on tasks, while at the same time communicating
the teacher’s commitment to mutual respect among students and between students and teachers. Many of the
instructional strategies discussed earlier in this book, such as cooperative learning and inquiry learning (in Chapter
8), therefore contribute to community in the classroom.
More specifically, you can, as a teacher, encourage community by doing any or all of the following:
• Tell students that you value mutual respect, and describe some of the ways that students can show respect
for each other and for school staff. Better yet, invite students themselves to describe how they might show
respect.
• Look for ways to sustain relationships among students and teachers for extended times. These ways may be
easier to find in elementary school, where a teacher and class normally remain together for an entire year,
than in middle and secondary school, where students learn from many teachers and teachers teach many
students. But still there are ways. Participating in extra-curricular activities (like sports teams or drama
club), for example, can sometimes provide settings where relationships develop for relatively long periods
of time—even more than a single school year.
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• Ask for input from students about what they want to learn, how they want to learn it, and what kind of
evaluation they consider fair. Although using their ideas may feel at first as if you are giving up your
responsibility as the teacher, asking for students’ input indicates respect for students. It is likely that many
of their suggestions need clarification or revision to become workable, especially if the class must also cover
a particular curriculum during a set time. But even just the asking for input shows respect, and can
contribute to community in the classroom.
• If conflicts arise between students or between a student and teacher, encourage respectful communication
as explicitly as you can. Some communication strategies about conflict resolution were described in Chapter
7 and are helpful in this regard: identifying true problem ownership, listening actively, assertive (not
aggressive) I-messages, and negotiation.
• Find times and ways for the class to experience itself as a community. This suggestion may look a bit vague
at first glance, but in practice it is actually quite concrete. Any action builds community if it is carried out by
the group as a whole, especially if it is done regularly and repeatedly and if it truly includes every member
of the class. Such actions become rituals, not in the negative sense of empty or mindless repetitions, but in
the positive sense of confirmations by group members of their commitment to each other (Ehrenreich,
2007). In the elementary grades, an obvious example of a ritual is reciting the Pledge of Allegiance (or its
equivalent in classrooms outside the United States). But there are many other examples of classroom
routines that gradually acquire the (positive) qualities of ritual or community-affirmation, often without
deliberate intention or effort. A daily, regular time to work through homework problems together in class,
for example, may serve obvious academic purposes. But it may also gradually contribute to a classroom’s
identity as a class. With time and familiarity the group homework time may eventually come to represent
“who we are” and of “what we do here” for that class.
The bottom line: messages sent, messages reconstructed
As we have explained in this chapter, teachers and students communicate in multiple, overlapping ways.
Communications may often be expressed in words—but not necessarily and not completely. They may be organized
into lectures, questions, discussions, or group projects. They tend to be expressed in particular language registers
that we have called simply teacher talk and student talk. All things considered, communication obviously serves a
wide range of teaching and learning tasks and activities, from stimulating students’ thinking, to orchestrating
classroom routines, to managing inappropriate behaviors. It is an intrinsic part of the parts of teaching that involve
interaction among class members.
Note, though, that teaching consists of more than interaction among class members. There are times when
teachers prepare lessons or activities, for example, without talking to students or anyone else. There are also times
when they develop their own skills as teachers—for example, by reading and reflecting, or by attending professional
development seminars or workshops—which may involve communication, but not in the sense discussed in this
chapter. It is to these other parts of teaching that we turn in the next chapter.
Table 20: Year one: Kelvin’s lecture notes
Nature and Purposes of Children’s Play
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1. Introduction to topic: What do we mean by play?
• excess energy
• seeking stimulation—relieve boredom
• escape from work
2. Six qualities defining play
• intrinsic motivation
• attention to the process, not the product
• non-literal behavior—make-believe
• no external rules
• self-governed
• active engagement
3. Implications for teaching
• devise activities with play-like qualities
• learn by watching children playing
Table 21: Year three: Kelvin’s question-and-answer notes
Nature and Purposes of Children’s Play
1. Introduction to topic: What do we mean by play? [First ask 1-2 students for their own answers to question.]
• excess energy [Ask: What evidence is there for this?]
• seeking stimulation—relieve boredom […or for this?]
• escape from work
2. Six qualities of children’s play [Invite students’ definitions, but keep them brief.]
• intrinsic motivation
• attention to the process, not the product
• nonliteral behavior—make-believe
• no external rules
• self-governed
• active engagement
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[Can you think of examples and/or counterexamples of each quality?]
3. Implications for teaching
• devise activities with playlike qualities [What activities have you already seen as a student teacher?]
• learn by watching children playing [How could you do this? Invite suggested strategies from students.]
Table 22: Year eight: Kelvin’s discussion notes
Nature and Purposes of Children’s Play
• Discuss possible explanations for play—what do students think are its true purposes? (10 minutes?)
• Can we define play? Brainstorm defining qualities, with examples. (30 minutes)
• Important question for all defining qualities: Are there exceptions—examples of play that do not show
certain defining qualities, but are still play? (15 minutes)
• What is important about play for teaching? (10 minutes +)
• …for the welfare of children? (10 minutes +)
• Etc. (anything else brought up by students)
Table 23: Year twenty: Kelvin’s guidelines for group work
Nature and Purposes of Children’s Play
• Make sure you listen to everyone, and not just to the people you agree with the most. Part of the
challenge of this project is to include all team members.
• You do not have to be best friends with someone in order to be partners. But you do have to get the work
done.
• Remember that it takes many skills and abilities to do this project well. Among other things, you need to:
1) find and understand research and other publications about children’s play,
2) observe children skillfully when they are playing,
3) have confidence in describing what you learn to group mates,
4) write about what you learn, and 5) be tactful and respectful when listening and talking with
partners.
Chapter summary
Because communication in classrooms is more complex and unpredictable than in many other situations, it is
important for teachers to understand its unique features and functions. It is helpful to think of classroom
communication as serving a mixture of three purposes at once: content talk, procedural talk, and behavior control
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talk. It is also helpful to recognize that classroom communication has elements that are not only verbal, but also
nonverbal and unintended.
To be effective in using verbal communication, teachers need to use appropriate instructional strategies related
to content, such as using advance organizers, relating new information to prior knowledge, and organizing new
information on behalf of students. It includes strategies that assist students to communicate, such as inquiry
learning and cooperative learning. To communicate well about procedures and about the behaviors expected of
students, teachers need a variety of management techniques, such as those discussed in Chapter 7 and summarized
again in Table 19. To be effective in using nonverbal communication, teachers need to use appropriate eye contact,
allow ample wait time between speaking turns, and be aware of the effects of social distance on students.
Structures of participation influence communication by facilitating particular patterns of speaking and listening,
while at the same time making other patterns less convenient or disapproved. Four common participation
structures are lectures, questions-and-answers, classroom discussions, and group work.
Key terms Procedural talk
Questions-and-answer
Caring community Register
Class discussions Social distance
Collaborative group work Student talk register
Communication Teacher talk register
Content talk Unintended communication
Control talk Verbal communication
Eye contact Wait time
Lecture
Nonverbal communication
Participation structures
On the Internet
<http://www.uu.edu/centers/faculty/resources/index.cfm?CatID=13> This URL offers tips for
enhancing classroom communication. It is organized around ten basic topics (e.g. “Organizing Effective
Discussions”) and focuses primarily on verbal communication. It is part of the more general website for Union
University of Jackson, Tennessee.
<http://www.idea.ksu.edu/index.html> This website contains over 40 short papers (1-4 pages each) on a
variety of topics, including many related to enhancing communication, but also some related to classroom
organization and management in general. Some of the papers refer to college or university teaching, but many are
quite relevant to public school teaching.
<http://www.fhsu.edu/~zhrepic/Teaching/GenEducation/nonverbcom/nonverbcom.htm> This
website contains a thorough discussion of nonverbal communication—more detailed than possible in this chapter,
and with photos and drawings to illustrate key points.
<http://www.responsiveclassroom.org/index.html> This website contains many resources, among
which are articles about classroom management and communication, including nonverbal communication. It is
intended strictly for public school teachers. Once you get to the homepage, click on their “Newsletter” for the
articles.
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9. Facilitating complex
thinking
A few years ago one of us (Kelvin) had the privilege of co-teaching with an experienced first grade
teacher, Carolyn Eaton. As part of a research project, Ms Eaton allowed some of her reading lessons
to be observed. Here is what Kelvin saw when Ms Eaton was having a conference with Joey. They
are reading a book “together”, except that Ms Eaton wants Joey to do as much reading as possible
himself. Joey’s comments are capitalized, and Ms Eaton’s are in lowercase.
JOEY: FIRST YOU READ—THEN ME. THIS IS WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO. I READ AFTER YOU,
OK?
Ms Eaton: OK. [Ms Eaton begins.] “In the great green room there was a telephone, a red balloon,
and a picture of…” Are you going to read, or what?
YES.
“In the great green room there was…” Are you ready yet? Ready to read?
OK. “IN THE GREAT GREEN ROOM…”
“…there was…”
“THERE WAS A…” [pauses, looking at Ms Eaton rather than at the words]
“…a telephone…”
YES, THAT’S IT, A TELEPHONE! “IN THE GREAT GREEN ROOM THERE WAS A TELEPHONE, A
RED BALLOON…”
“and a picture of…”
“AND A PICTURE OF” [pauses, staring at the wall]…A COW JUMPING?”
“a cow jumping over the moon”.
“OVER MOON” [smiles from both Joey and Ms Eaton].
Joey, what does this say? [She points to the word telephone.]
“THERE WAS A TELEPHONE”.
How about here? [She points to next page, which reads “And there were three little bears, sitting on
chairs”.]
“THERE WERE BEARS, THREE BEARS, AND THEY SAT ON CHAIRS”.
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9. Facilitating complex thinking
Can you read the whole book?
SURE!
OK, then you start this time.
[Joey looks at first page, alternately at the picture and at the words.]
“IN THE GREAT GREEN ROOM THERE WAS A TELEPHONE”.
[Actual text: “In the great green room, there was a telephone”,]
“AND THERE WAS A RED BALLOON”,
[Actual text: “…and a red balloon”,]
“AND A PICTURE OF THE COW JUMPING OVER THE MOON”.
[Actual text: “…and a picture of the cow jumping over the moon”.]
“AND THERE WERE…” THREE BEARS?… “LITTLE BEARS SITTING ON CHAIRS”.
[Actual text: “And there were three little bears, sitting on chairs,…”]
Could you read this book with you eyes closed?
SURE; WANT TO SEE ME DO IT?!
Well, not right now; maybe another time. Could you read it without the pictures, just looking at the
words? That’s how I do best—when I see the words instead of the pictures.
[Joey pauses to consider this.] MAYBE, BUT NOT QUITE SO WELL.
Let’s try it. [Ms Eaton proceeds to copy the words on a large sheet for Joey to “read” later.]
As Carolyn Eaton’s behavior suggests, there are decisions to make “on the fly”, even during the very act of
teaching. Ms Eaton wonders when to challenge Joey, and when to support him. She also wonders when to pause
and ask Joey to take stock of what he has read, and when to move him on ahead—when to consolidate a student’s
learning, and when to nudge the student forward. These are questions about instructional strategies which
facilitate complex learning, either directly or indirectly. In this chapter we review as many strategies as space
allows, in order to give a sense of the major instructional options and of their effects. We concentrate especially on
two broad categories of instruction, which we call direct instruction and student-centered instruction. As we hope
that you will see, each approach to teaching is useful for certain purposes. We begin, though, by looking at the ways
students think, or at least how teachers would like students to think. What does it mean for students to think
critically (astutely or logically)? Or to think creatively? Or to be skillful problem solvers? Forms of thinking lead to
choices among instructional strategies.
Forms of thinking associated with classroom learning
Although instructional strategies differ in their details, they each encourage particular forms of learning and
thinking. The forms have distinctive educational purposes, even though they sometimes overlap, in the sense that
one form may contribute to success with another form. Consider three somewhat complex forms of thinking that
are commonly pursued in classroom learning: (1) critical thinking, (2) creative thinking, and (3) problem-solving.
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Critical thinking
Critical thinking requires skill at analyzing the reliability and validity of information, as well as the attitude or
disposition to do so. The skill and attitude may be displayed with regard to a particular subject matter or topic, but
in principle it can occur in any realm of knowledge (Halpern, 2003; Williams, Oliver, & Stockade, 2004). A critical
thinker does not necessarily have a negative attitude in the everyday sense of constantly criticizing someone or
something. Instead, he or she can be thought of as astute: the critical thinker asks key questions, evaluates the
evidence for ideas, reasons for problems both logically and objectively, and expresses ideas and conclusions clearly
and precisely. Last (but not least), the critical thinker can apply these habits of mind in more than one realm of life
or knowledge.
With such a broad definition, it is not surprising that educators have suggested a variety of specific cognitive
skills as contributing to critical thinking. In one study, for example, the researcher found how critical thinking can
be reflected in regard to a published article was stimulated by annotation—writing questions and comments in the
margins of the article (Liu, 2006). In this study, students were initially instructed in ways of annotating reading
materials. Later, when the students completed additional readings for assignments, it was found that some students
in fact used their annotation skills much more than others—some simply underlined passages, for example, with a
highlighting pen. When essays written about the readings were later analyzed, the ones written by the annotators
were found to be more well reasoned—more critically astute—than the essays written by the other students.
In another study, on the other hand, a researcher found that critical thinking can also involve oral discussion of
personal issues or dilemmas (Hawkins, 2006). In this study, students were asked to verbally describe a recent,
personal incident that disturbed them. Classmates then discussed the incident together in order to identify the
precise reasons why the incident was disturbing, as well as the assumptions that the student made in describing the
incident. The original student—the one who had first told the story—then used the results of the group discussion to
frame a topic for a research essay. In one story of a troubling incident, a student told of a time when a store clerk
has snubbed or rejected the student during a recent shopping errand. Through discussion, classmates decided that
an assumption underlying the student’s disturbance was her suspicion that she had been a victim of racial profiling
based on her skin color. The student then used this idea as the basis for a research essay on the topic of “racial
profiling in retail stores”. The oral discussion thus stimulated critical thinking in the student and the classmates,
but it also relied on their prior critical thinking skills at the same time.
Notice that in both of these research studies, as in others like them, what made the thinking “critical” was
students’ use of metacognition—strategies for thinking about thinking and for monitoring the success and quality
of one’s own thinking. This concept was discussed in Chapter 2 as a feature of constructivist views about learning.
There we pointed out that when students acquire experience in building their own knowledge, they also become
skilled both at knowing how they learn, and at knowing whether they have learned something well. These are two
defining qualities of metacognition, but they are part of critical thinking as well. In fostering critical thinking, a
teacher is really fostering a student’s ability to construct or control his or her own thinking and to avoid being
controlled by ideas unreflectively.
How best to teach critical thinking remains a matter of debate. One issue is whether to infuse critical skills into
existing courses or to teach them through separate, free-standing units or courses. The first approach has the
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potential advantage of integrating critical thinking into students’ entire educations. But it risks diluting students’
understanding and use of critical thinking simply because critical thinking takes on a different form in each
learning context. Its details and appearance vary among courses and teachers. The free-standing approach has the
opposite qualities: it stands a better chance of being understood clearly and coherently, but at the cost of obscuring
how it is related to other courses, tasks, and activities. This dilemma is the issue—again—of transfer, discussed in
Chapter 2. Unfortunately, research to compare the different strategies for teaching critical thinking does not settle
the matter. The research suggests simply that either infusion or free-standing approaches can work as long as it is
implemented thoroughly and teachers are committed to the value of critical thinking (Halpern, 2003).
A related issue about teaching critical thinking is about deciding who needs to learn critical thinking skills the
most. Should it be all students, or only some of them? Teaching all students seems the more democratic alternative
and thus appropriate for educators. Surveys have found, however, that teachers sometimes favor teaching of critical
thinking only to high-advantage students—the ones who already achieve well, who come from relatively high-
income families, or (for high school students) who take courses intended for university entrance (Warburton &
Torff, 2005). Presumably the rationale for this bias is that high-advantage students can benefit and/or understand
and use critical thinking better than other students. Yet, there is little research evidence to support this idea, even if
it were not ethically questionable. The study by Hawkins (2006) described above, for example, is that critical
thinking was fostered even with students considered low-advantage.
Creative thinking
Creativity is the ability to make or do something new that is also useful or valued by others (Gardner, 1993).
The “something” can be an object (like an essay or painting), a skill (like playing an instrument), or an action (like
using a familiar tool in a new way). To be creative, the object, skill, or action cannot simply be bizarre or strange; it
cannot be new without also being useful or valued, and not simply be the result of accident. If a person types letters
at random that form a poem by chance, the result may be beautiful, but it would not be creative by the definition
above. Viewed this way, creativity includes a wide range of human experience that many people, if not everyone,
have had at some time or other (Kaufman & Baer, 2006). The experience is not restricted to a few geniuses, nor
exclusive to specific fields or activities like art or the composing of music.
Especially important for teachers are two facts. The first is that an important form of creativity is creative
thinking, the generation of ideas that are new as well as useful, productive, and appropriate. The second is that
creative thinking can be stimulated by teachers’ efforts. Teachers can, for example, encourage students’ divergent
thinking—ideas that are open-ended and that lead in many directions (Torrance, 1992; Kim, 2006). Divergent
thinking is stimulated by open-ended questions—questions with many possible answers, such as the following:
• How many uses can you think of for a cup?
• Draw a picture that somehow incorporates all of these words: cat, fire engine, and banana.
• What is the most unusual use you can think of for a shoe?
Note that answering these questions creatively depends partly on having already acquired knowledge about the
objects to which the questions refer. In this sense divergent thinking depends partly on its converse, convergent
thinking, which is focused, logical reasoning about ideas and experiences that lead to specific answers. Up to a
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point, then, developing students’ convergent thinking—as schoolwork often does by emphasizing mastery of
content—facilitates students’ divergent thinking indirectly, and hence also their creativity (Sternberg, 2003; Runco,
2004; Cropley, 2006). But carried to extremes, excessive emphasis on convergent thinking may discourage
creativity.
Whether in school or out, creativity seems to flourish best when the creative activity is its own intrinsic reward,
and a person is relatively unconcerned with what others think of the results. Whatever the activity—composing a
song, writing an essay, organizing a party, or whatever—it is more likely to be creative if the creator focuses on and
enjoys the activity in itself, and thinks relatively little about how others may evaluate the activity (Brophy, 2004).
Unfortunately, encouraging students to ignore others' responses can sometimes pose a challenge for teachers. Not
only is it the teachers' job to evaluate students’ learning of particular ideas or skills, but also they have to do so
within restricted time limits of a course or a school year. In spite of these constraints, though, creativity still can be
encouraged in classrooms at least some of the time (Claxton, Edwards, & Scale-Constantinou, 2006). Suppose, for
example, that students have to be assessed on their understanding and use of particular vocabulary. Testing their
understanding may limit creative thinking; students will understandably focus their energies on learning “right”
answers for the tests. But assessment does not have to happen constantly. There can also be times to encourage
experimentation with vocabulary through writing poems, making word games, or in other thought-provoking ways.
These activities are all potentially creative. To some extent, therefore, learning content and experimenting or
playing with content can both find a place—in fact one of these activities can often support the other. We return to
this point later in this chapter, when we discuss student-centered strategies of instruction, such as cooperative
learning and play as a learning medium.
Problem-solving
Somewhat less open-ended than creative thinking is problem solving, the analysis and solution of tasks or
situations that are complex or ambiguous and that pose difficulties or obstacles of some kind (Mayer & Wittrock,
2006). Problem solving is needed, for example, when a physician analyzes a chest X-ray: a photograph of the chest
is far from clear and requires skill, experience, and resourcefulness to decide which foggy-looking blobs to ignore,
and which to interpret as real physical structures (and therefore real medical concerns). Problem solving is also
needed when a grocery store manager has to decide how to improve the sales of a product: should she put it on sale
at a lower price, or increase publicity for it, or both? Will these actions actually increase sales enough to pay for
their costs?
Problem solving in the classroom
Problem solving happens in classrooms when teachers present tasks or challenges that are deliberately complex
and for which finding a solution is not straightforward or obvious. The responses of students to such problems, as
well as the strategies for assisting them, show the key features of problem solving. Consider this example, and
students’ responses to it. We have numbered and named the paragraphs to make it easier to comment about them
individually:
Scene #1: a problem to be solved
A teacher gave these instructions: “Can you connect all of the dots below using only four straight
lines?” She drew the following display on the chalkboard:
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Exhibit 10: The teacher gave these
instructions: "Can you connect these dots with
only four lines
The problem itself and the procedure for solving it seemed very clear: simply experiment with
different arrangements of four lines. But two volunteers tried doing it at the board, but were
unsuccessful. Several others worked at it at their seats, but also without success.
Scene #2: coaxing students to re-frame the problem
When no one seemed to be getting it, the teacher asked, “Think about how you’ve set up the problem
in your mind—about what you believe the problem is about. For instance, have you made any
assumptions about how long the lines ought to be? Don’t stay stuck on one approach if it’s not
working!”
Scene #3: Alicia abandons a fixed response
After the teacher said this, Alicia indeed continued to think about how she saw the problem. “The
lines need to be no longer than the distance across the square,” she said to herself. So she tried
several more solutions, but none of them worked either.
The teacher walked by Alicia’s desk and saw what Alicia was doing. She repeated her earlier
comment: “Have you assumed anything about how long the lines ought to be?”
Alicia stared at the teacher blankly, but then smiled and said, “Hmm! You didn’t actually say that
the lines could be no longer than the matrix! Why not make them longer?” So she experimented again
using oversized lines and soon discovered a solution:
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Scene #4: Willem’s and Rachel's alternative strategies
Meanwhile, Willem worked on the problem. As it happened, Willem loved puzzles of all kinds, and
had ample experience with them. He had not, however, seen this particular problem. “It must be a
trick,” he said to himself, because he knew from experience that problems posed in this way often
were not what they first appeared to be. He mused to himself: “Think outside the box, they always
tell you…” And that was just the hint he needed: he drew lines outside the box by making them
longer than the matrix and soon came up with this solution:
Exhibit 12: Willem's and
Rachel's solution
When Rachel went to work, she took one look at the problem and knew the answer immediately: she
had seen this problem before, though she could not remember where. She had also seen other
drawing-related puzzles, and knew that their solution always depended on making the lines longer,
shorter, or differently angled than first expected. After staring at the dots briefly, she drew a solution
faster than Alicia or even Willem. Her solution looked exactly like Willem's.
This story illustrates two common features of problem solving: the effect of degree of structure or constraint on
problem solving, and the effect of mental obstacles to solving problems. The next sections discuss each of these
features, and then looks at common techniques for solving problems.
The effect of constraints: well-structured versus ill-structured problems
Problems vary in how much information they provide for solving a problem, as well as in how many rules or
procedures are needed for a solution. A well-structured problem provides much of the information needed and
can in principle be solved using relatively few clearly understood rules. Classic examples are the word problems
often taught in math lessons or classes: everything you need to know is contained within the stated problem and the
solution procedures are relatively clear and precise. An ill-structured problem has the converse qualities: the
information is not necessarily within the problem, solution procedures are potentially quite numerous, and a
multiple solutions are likely (Voss, 2006). Extreme examples are problems like “How can the world achieve lasting
peace?” or “How can teachers insure that students learn?”
By these definitions, the nine-dot problem is relatively well-structured—though not completely. Most of the
information needed for a solution is provided in Scene #1: there are nine dots shown and instructions given to draw
four lines. But not all necessary information was given: students needed to consider lines that were longer than
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implied in the original statement of the problem. Students had to “think outside the box”, as Willem said—in this
case, literally.
When a problem is well-structured, so are its solution procedures likely to be as well. A well-defined procedure
for solving a particular kind of problem is often called an algorithm; examples are the procedures for multiplying
or dividing two numbers or the instructions for using a computer (Leiserson, et al., 2001). Algorithms are only
effective when a problem is very well-structured and there is no question about whether the algorithm is an
appropriate choice for the problem. In that situation it pretty much guarantees a correct solution. They do not work
well, however, with ill-structured problems, where they are ambiguities and questions about how to proceed or even
about precisely what the problem is about. In those cases it is more effective to use heuristics, which are general
strategies—“rules of thumb”, so to speak—that do not always work, but often do, or that provide at least partial
solutions. When beginning research for a term paper, for example, a useful heuristic is to scan the library catalogue
for titles that look relevant. There is no guarantee that this strategy will yield the books most needed for the paper,
but the strategy works enough of the time to make it worth trying.
In the nine-dot problem, most students began in Scene #1 with a simple algorithm that can be stated like this:
“Draw one line, then draw another, and another, and another”. Unfortunately this simple procedure did not
produce a solution, so they had to find other strategies for a solution. Three alternatives are described in Scenes #3
(for Alicia) and 4 (for Willem and Rachel). Of these, Willem’s response resembled a heuristic the most: he knew
from experience that a good general strategy that often worked for such problems was to suspect a deception or
trick in how the problem was originally stated. So he set out to question what the teacher had meant by the word
line, and came up with an acceptable solution as a result.
Common obstacles to solving problems
The example also illustrates two common problems that sometimes happen during problem solving. One of
these is functional fixedness: a tendency to regard the functions of objects and ideas as fixed (German & Barrett,
2005). Over time, we get so used to one particular purpose for an object that we overlook other uses. We may think
of a dictionary, for example, as necessarily something to verify spellings and definitions, but it also can function as a
gift, a doorstop, or a footstool. For students working on the nine-dot matrix described in the last section, the notion
of “drawing” a line was also initially fixed; they assumed it to be connecting dots but not extending lines beyond the
dots. Functional fixedness sometimes is also called response set, the tendency for a person to frame or think
about each problem in a series in the same way as the previous problem, even when doing so is not appropriate to
later problems. In the example of the nine-dot matrix described above, students often tried one solution after
another, but each solution was constrained by a set response not to extend any line beyond the matrix.
Functional fixedness and the response set are obstacles in problem representation, the way that a person
understands and organizes information provided in a problem. If information is misunderstood or used
inappropriately, then mistakes are likely—if indeed the problem can be solved at all. With the nine-dot matrix
problem, for example, construing the instruction to draw four lines as meaning “draw four lines entirely within the
matrix” means that the problem simply could not be solved. For another, consider this problem: “The number of
water lilies on a lake doubles each day. Each water lily covers exactly one square foot. If it takes 100 days for the
lilies to cover the lake exactly, how many days does it take for the lilies to cover exactly half of the lake?” If you
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think that the size of the lilies affects the solution to this problem, you have not represented the problem correctly.
Information about lily size is not relevant to the solution, and only serves to distract from the truly crucial
information, the fact that the lilies double their coverage each day. (The answer, incidentally, is that the lake is half
covered in 99 days; can you think why?)
Strategies to assist problem solving
Just as there are cognitive obstacles to problem solving, there are also general strategies that help the process be
successful, regardless of the specific content of a problem (Thagard, 2005). One helpful strategy is problem
analysis—identifying the parts of the problem and working on each part separately. Analysis is especially useful
when a problem is ill-structured. Consider this problem, for example: “Devise a plan to improve bicycle
transportation in the city.” Solving this problem is easier if you identify its parts or component subproblems, such
as (1) installing bicycle lanes on busy streets, (2) educating cyclists and motorists to ride safely, (3) fixing potholes
on streets used by cyclists, and (4) revising traffic laws that interfere with cycling. Each separate subproblem is
more manageable than the original, general problem. The solution of each subproblem contributes the solution of
the whole, though of course is not equivalent to a whole solution.
Another helpful strategy is working backward from a final solution to the originally stated problem. This
approach is especially helpful when a problem is well-structured but also has elements that are distracting or
misleading when approached in a forward, normal direction. The water lily problem described above is a good
example: starting with the day when all the lake is covered (Day 100), ask what day would it therefore be half
covered (by the terms of the problem, it would have to be the day before, or Day 99). Working backward in this case
encourages reframing the extra information in the problem (i. e. the size of each water lily) as merely distracting,
not as crucial to a solution.
A third helpful strategy is analogical thinking—using knowledge or experiences with similar features or
structures to help solve the problem at hand (Bassok, 2003). In devising a plan to improve bicycling in the city, for
example, an analogy of cars with bicycles is helpful in thinking of solutions: improving conditions for both vehicles
requires many of the same measures (improving the roadways, educating drivers). Even solving simpler, more basic
problems is helped by considering analogies. A first grade student can partially decode unfamiliar printed words by
analogy to words he or she has learned already. If the child cannot yet read the word screen, for example, he can
note that part of this word looks similar to words he may already know, such as seen or green, and from this
observation derive a clue about how to read the word screen. Teachers can assist this process, as you might expect,
by suggesting reasonable, helpful analogies for students to consider.
Broad instructional strategies that stimulate complex thinking
Because the forms of thinking just described—critical thinking, creativity and problem solving—are broad and
important educationally, it is not surprising that educators have identified strategies to encourage their
development. Some of the possibilities are shown in Table 24 and group several instructional strategies along two
dimensions: how much the strategy is student-centered and how much a strategy depends on group interaction. It
should be emphasized that the two-way classification in Table 24 is not very precise, but it gives a useful framework
for understanding the options available for planning and implementing instruction. The more important of the two
dimensions in the table is the first one—the extent to which an instructional strategy is either directed by the
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teacher or initiated by students. We take a closer look at this dimension in the next part of this chapter, followed by
discussion of group-oriented teaching strategies.
Table 24: Major instructional strategies grouped by level of teacher direction and student focus
Directed by student(s) more
Cooperative learning Self-reflection
Inquiry Independent study
Emphasizes groups Discovery learning Concept maps Emphasizes
somewhat more Lectures Mastery learning individuals somewhat
Textbook readings more
Direct instruction Advance organizers
Outlining
Madeline Hunter's
“Effective Teaching”
Recalling, relating, and
elaborating
Directed by teacher more
Definitions of Terms in Table 8.1
Lecture Telling or explaining previously organized information—usually to a group
Assigned reading Reading, usually individually, of previously organized information
Advance organizers Brief overview, either verbally or graphically, of material about to be covered in a
lecture or text
Outlining Writing important points of a lecture or reading, usually in a hierarchical format
Taking notes Writing important points of a lecture or reading, often organized according to the
learning needs of an individual student
Concept maps Graphic depiction of relationships among a set of concepts, terms, or ideas;
usually organized by the student, but not always
Madeline Hunter’s A set of strategies that emphasizes clear presentation of goals, the explanation
“Effective Teaching” and modeling of tasks to students and careful monitoring of students’ progress
toward the goals
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Teacher-directed instruction
As the name implies, teacher-directed instruction includes any strategies initiated and guided primarily by the
teacher. A classic example is exposition or lecturing (simply telling or explaining important information to
students) combined with assigning reading from texts. But teacher-directed instruction also includes strategies that
involve more active response from students, such as encouraging students to elaborate on new knowledge or to
explain how new information relates to prior knowledge. Whatever their form, teacher-directed instructional
methods normally include the organizing of information on behalf of students, even if teachers also expect students
to organize it further on their own. Sometimes, therefore, teacher-directed methods are thought of as transmitting
knowledge from teacher to student as clearly and efficiently as possible, even if they also require mental work on
the part of the student.
Lectures and readings
Lectures and readings are traditional staples of educators, particularly with older students (including university
students). At their best, they pre-organize information so that (at least in theory) the student only has to remember
what was said in the lecture or written in the text in order to begin understanding it (Exley & Dennick, 2004). Their
limitation is the ambiguity of the responses they require: listening and reading are by nature quiet and stationary,
and do not in themselves indicate whether a student is comprehending or even attending to the material. Educators
sometimes complain that “students are too passive” during lectures or when reading. But physical quietness is
intrinsic to these activities, not to the students who do them. A book just sits still, after all, unless a student makes
an effort to read it, and a lecture may not be heard unless a student makes the effort to listen to it.
Advance organizers
In spite of these problems, there are strategies for making lectures and readings effective. A teacher can be
especially careful about organizing information for students, and she can turn part of the mental work over to
students themselves. An example of the first approach is the use of advance organizers—brief overviews or
introductions to new material before the material itself is presented (Ausubel, 1978). Textbook authors (including
ourselves) often try deliberately to insert periodic advance organizers to introduce new sections or chapters in the
text. When used in a lecture, advance organizers are usually statements in the form of brief introductory remarks,
though sometimes diagrams showing relationships among key ideas can also serve the same purpose (Robinson, et
al., 2003). Whatever their form, advance organizers partially organize the material on behalf of the students, so that
they know where to put it all, so to speak, as they learn them in more detail.
Recalling and relating prior knowledge
Another strategy for improving teacher-directed instruction is to encourage students to relate the new material
to prior familiar knowledge. When one of us (Kelvin) first learned a foreign language (in his case French), for
example, he often noticed similarities between French and English vocabulary. A French word for picture, for
example, was image, spelled exactly as it is in English. The French word for splendid was splendide, spelled almost
the same as in English, though not quite. Relating the French vocabulary to English vocabulary helped in learning
and remembering the French.
As children and youth become more experienced in their academics, they tend to relate new information to
previously learned information more frequently and automatically (Goodwin, 1999; Oakhill, Hartt, & Samols,
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2005). But teachers can also facilitate students’ use of this strategy. When presenting new concepts or ideas, the
teacher can relate them to previously learned ideas deliberately—essentially modeling a memory strategy that
students learn to use for themselves. In a science class, for example, she can say, “This is another example of…,
which we studied before”; in social studies she can say, “Remember what we found out last time about the growth of
the railroads? We saw that…”
If students are relatively young or are struggling academically, it is especially important to remind them of their
prior knowledge. Teachers can periodically ask questions like “What do you already know about this topic?” or
“How will your new knowledge about this topic change what you know already?” Whatever the age of students,
connecting new with prior knowledge is easier with help from someone more knowledgeable, such as the teacher.
When learning algorithms for multiplication, for example, students may not at first see how multiplication is
related to addition processes which they probably learned previously (Burns, 2001). But if a teacher takes time to
explain the relationship and to give students time to explore it, then the new skill of multiplication may be learned
more easily.
Elaborating information
Elaborating new information means asking questions about the new material, inferring ideas and relationships
among the new concepts. Such strategies are closely related to the strategy of recalling prior knowledge as discussed
above: elaboration enriches the new information and connects it to other knowledge. In this sense elaboration
makes the new learning more meaningful and less arbitrary.
A teacher can help students use elaboration by modeling this behavior. The teacher can interrupt his or her
explanation of an idea, for example, by asking how it relates to other ideas, or by speculating about where the new
concept or idea may lead. He or she can also encourage students to do the same, and even give students questions
to guide their thinking. When giving examples of a concept, for example, a teacher can hold back from offering all of
the examples, and instead ask students to think of additional examples themselves. The same tactic can work with
assigned readings; if the reading includes examples, the teacher can instruct students to find or make up additional
examples of their own.
Organizing new information
There are many ways to organize new information that are especially well-suited to teacher-directed instruction.
A common way is simply to ask students to outline information read in a text or heard in a lecture. Outlining
works especially well when the information is already organized somewhat hierarchically into a series of main
topics, each with supporting subtopics or subpoints. Outlining is basically a form of the more general strategy of
taking notes, or writing down key ideas and terms from a reading or lecture. Research studies find that that the
precise style or content of notes is less important that the quantity of notes taken: more detail is usually better than
less (Ward & Tatsukawa, 2003). Written notes insure that a student thinks about the material not only while
writing it down, but also when reading the notes later. These benefits are especially helpful when students are
relatively inexperienced at school learning in general (as in the earlier grade levels), or relatively inexperienced
about a specific topic or content in particular. Not surprisingly, such students may also need more guidance than
usual about what and how to write notes. It can be helpful for the teacher to provide a note-taking guide, like the
ones shown in Exhibit 11.
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Notes on Science Experiment Guide to Notes About Tale of Two Cities:
1. Purpose of the experiment (in one sentence): 1. Main characters (list and describe in just a few
words):
a)
2. Equipment needed (list each item and define b)
any special terms): c)
1) d)
2) 2. Setting of the story (time and place):
3)
4) 3. Unfamiliar vocabulary in the story (list and
define):
3. Procedure used (be specific!):
a)
4.
b)
4. Results (include each measurement, rounded to
the nearest integer): c)
Observation #1 d)
Observation #2 4. Plot (write down only the main events):
Observation #3
Observation #4 a)
Average b)
measurement, #1-4: c)
d)
5. Theme (or underlying “message”) of the story:
Exhibit 13: Two note taking guides
In learning expository material, another helpful strategy—one that is more visually oriented—is to make
concept maps, or diagrams of the connections among concepts or ideas. Exhibit 10 shows concept maps made by
two individuals that graphically depict how a key idea, child development, relates to learning and education. One of
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9. Facilitating complex thinking
the maps was drawn by a classroom teacher and the other by a university professor of psychology (Seifert, 1991).
They suggest possible differences in how the two individuals think about children and their development. Not
surprisingly, the teacher gave more prominence to practical concerns (for example, classroom learning and child
abuse), and the professor gave more prominence to theoretical ones (for example, Erik Erikson and Piaget). The
differences suggest that these two people may have something different in mind when they use the same term, child
development. The differences have the potential to create misunderstandings between them (Seifert, 1999; Super &
Harkness, 2003). By the same token, the two maps also suggest what each person might need to learn in order to
achieve better understanding of the other person’s thinking and ideas.
Exhibit 14: Maps of personal definitions of “child development”
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Mastery learning
This term refers to an instructional approach in which all students learn material to an identically high level,
even if some students require more time than others to do so (Gentile, 2004). In mastery learning, the teacher
directs learning, though sometimes only in the sense of finding, writing, and orchestrating specific modules or units
for students to learn. In one typical mastery learning program, the teacher introduces a few new concepts or topics
through a brief lecture or teacher-led demonstration. Then she gives an ungraded assignment or test immediately
in order to assess how well students have learned the material, and which ones still need help. The students who
have already learned the unit are given enrichment activities. Those needing more help are provided individual
tutoring or additional self-guiding materials that clarify the initial content; they work until they have in fact
mastered the content (hence the name mastery learning). At that point students take another test or do another
assignment to show that they have in fact learned the material to the expected high standard. When the system is
working well, all students end up with high scores or grades, although usually some take longer to do so than
others.
As you might suspect, mastery learning poses two challenges. The first is ethical: is it really fair to give
enrichment only to faster students and remediation only to slower students? This practice could deteriorate into
continually providing the fast with an interesting education, while continually providing the slow only with boring,
repetitious material. In using the approach, therefore, it is important to make all materials interesting, whether
enrichment or remedial. It is also important to make sure that the basic learning goals of each unit are truly
important—even crucial—for everyone to learn, so that even slower individuals spend their time well.
The other challenge of mastery learning is more practical: the approach makes strong demands for detailed,
highly organized curriculum. If the approach is to work, the teacher must either locate such a curriculum, write one
herself, or assemble a suitable mixture of published and self-authored materials. However the curriculum is
created, the end result has to be a program filled with small units of study as well as ample enrichment and
remedial materials. Sometimes providing these practical requirements can be challenging. But not always: some
subjects (like mathematics) lend themselves to detailed, sequential organization especially well. In many cases, too,
commercial publishers have produced curricula already organized for use in mastery learning programs (Fox,
2004).
Direct instruction
Although the term direct instruction is sometimes a synonym for teacher-directed instruction, more often it
refers to a version of mastery learning that is highly scripted, meaning that it not only organizes the curriculum into
small modules or units as described above, but also dictates how teachers should teach and sometimes even the
words they should speak (Adams & Engelmann, 1996; Magliaro, Lockee, & Burton, 2005). Direct instruction
programs are usually based on a mix of ideas from behaviorism and cognitive theories of learning. In keeping with
behaviorism, the teacher is supposed to praise students immediately and explicitly when they give a correct answer.
In keeping with cognitive theory, she is supposed to state learning objectives in advance of teaching them
(providing a sort of mini-advance organizer), provide frequent reviews of materials, and check deliberately on how
well students are learning. Direct instruction usually also introduces material in small, logical steps, and calls for
plenty of time for students to practice.
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Direct instruction programs share one of the challenges of other mastery learning approaches: because they hold
all students to the same high standard of achievement, they must deal with differences in how long students require
to reach the standard. But direct instruction has an additional challenge, in that they often rely on small-group
interaction more heavily than other mastery learning programs, and use self-guiding materials less. This difference
has the benefit that direct instruction works especially well with younger students (especially kindergarten through
third grade), who may have limited skills at working alone for extended periods. The challenge is that reliance on
small-group interaction can make it impractical to use direct instruction with an entire class or for an entire school
day. In spite of these limits, however, research has found direct instruction to be very effective in teaching basic
skills such as early reading and arithmetic (Adams & Engelmann, 1996).
Madeline Hunter’s effective teaching model
A number of direct instruction strategies have been combined by Madeline Hunter into a single, relatively
comprehensive approach that she calls mastery teaching (not to be confused with the related term mastery
learning) or the effective teaching model (M. Hunter, 1982; R. Hunter, 2004). Important features of the model
are summarized in Table 25. As you can see, the features span all phases of contact with students—before, during,
and after lessons.
Table 25: Madeline Hunter's “Effective Teaching Model”
Prepare students to learn.
• Make good use of time at the beginning of a lesson or activity, when attention is best
• Direct students' attention to what lies ahead in a lesson—for example, by offering “advance organizers”
• Explain lesson objectives explicitly
Present information clearly and explicitly.
• Set a basic structure to the lesson and stay with it throughout
• Use familiar terms and examples
• Be concise
Check for understanding and give guided practice.
• Ask questions that everyone responds to—for example, “Raise your hand if you think the answer is X”
• Invite choral responses—for example, “Is this a correct answer or not?”
• Sample individuals' understanding—for example, “Barry, what's your example of X?”
Provide for independent practice.
• Work through the first few exercises or problems together
• Keep independent practice periods brief and intersperse with discussions that offer feedback
Source: R. Hunter, 2004
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What happens even before a lesson begins? Like many forms of teacher-directed instruction, the effective
teaching model requires curricula and learning goals that are tightly organized and divisible into small parts, ideas,
or skills. In teaching about photosynthesis, for example, the teacher (or at least her curriculum) needs to identify
the basic elements that contribute to this process, and how they relate to each other. With photosynthesis, the
elements include the sun, plants, animals, chlorophyll, oxygen produced by plants and consumed by animals, and
carbon dioxide that produced by animals and consumed by plants. The roles of these elements need to be identified
and expressed at a level appropriate for the students. With advanced science students, oxygen, chlorophyll, and
carbon dioxide may be expressed as part of complex chemical reactions; with first-grade students, though, they may
be expressed simply as parts of a process akin to breathing or respiration.
Once this analysis of the curriculum has been done, the Hunter's effective teaching model requires making the
most of the lesson time by creating an anticipatory set, which is an activity that focuses or orients the attention of
students to the upcoming content. Creating an anticipatory set may consist, for example, of posing one or more
questions about students’ everyday knowledge or knowledge of prior lessons. In teaching about differences between
fruits and vegetables, the teacher could start by asking: “If you are making a salad strictly of fruit, which of these
would be OK to use: apple, tomato, cucumber, or orange?” As the lesson proceeds, information needs to be offered
in short, logical pieces, using language as familiar as possible to the students. Examples should be plentiful and
varied: if the purpose is to define and distinguish fruits and vegetables, for example, then features defining each
group should be presented singularly or at most just a few at a time, with clear-cut examples presented of each
feature. Sometimes models or analogies also help to explain examples. A teacher can say: “Think of a fruit as a sort
of ‘decoration’ on the plant, because if you pick it, the plant will go on living.” But models can also mislead students
if they are not used thoughtfully, since they may contain features that differ from the original concepts. In likening
a fruit to a decoration, for example, students may overlook the essential role of fruit in plant reproduction, or think
that lettuce qualifies as a fruit, since picking a few lettuce leaves does not usually kill a lettuce plant.
Throughout a lesson, the teacher repeatedly checks for understanding by asking questions that call for
active thinking on the part of students. One way is to require all students to respond somehow, either with an actual
choral response (speaking in unison together), another way with a non-verbal signal like raising hands to indicate
answers to questions. In teaching about fruits and vegetables, for example, a teacher can ask, “Here’s a list of fruits
and vegetables. As I point to each one, raise your hand if it’s a fruit, but not if it’s a vegetable.” Or she can ask:
“Here’s a list of fruits and vegetables. Say together what each on is as I point to it; you say ‘fruit’ or ‘vegetable’,
whichever applies.” Even though some students may hide their ignorance by letting more knowledgeable
classmates do the responding, the general level or quality of response can still give a rough idea of how well
students are understanding. These checks can be supplemented, of course, with questions addressed to individuals,
or with questions to which individuals must respond briefly in writing. A teacher can ask everyone, “Give me an
example of one fruit and one vegetable”, and then call on individuals to answer. She can also say: “I want everyone
to make a list with two columns, one listing all the fruits you can think of and the other listing all the vegetables you
can think of.”
As a lesson draws to a close, the teacher arranges for students to have further independent practice. The
point of the practice is not to explore new material or ideas, but to consolidate or strengthen the recent learning. At
the end of a lesson about long division, for example, the teacher can make a transition to independent practice by
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9. Facilitating complex thinking
providing a set of additional problems similar to the ones she explained during the lesson. After working one or two
with students, she can turn the rest of the task over to the students to practice on their own. But note that even
though the practice is supposedly “independent”, students’ understanding still has be checked frequently. A long set
of practice problems therefore needs to be broken up into small subsets of problems, and written or oral feedback
offered periodically.
What are the limits of teacher-directed instruction?
Whatever the grade level, most subjects taught in schools have at least some features, skills, or topics that
benefit from direct instruction. Even subjects usually considered “creative” can benefit from a direct approach at
times: to draw, sing, or write a poem, for example, requires skills that may be easier to learn if presented
sequentially in small units with frequent feedback from a teacher. Research supports the usefulness of teacher-
directed instruction for a variety of educational contexts when it is designed well and implemented as intended
(Rosenshine & Mesister,1995; Good & Brophy, 2004). Teachers themselves also tend to support the approach in
principle (Demant & Yates, 2003).
But there are limits to its usefulness. Some are the practical ones are pointed out above. Teacher-directed
instruction, whatever the form, requires well-organized units of instruction in advance of when students are to
learn. Such units may not always be available, and it may not be realistic to expect busy teachers to devise their
own. Other limits of direct instruction have more to do with the very nature of learning. Some critics argue that
organizing material on behalf of the students encourages students to be passive—an ironic and undesirable result if
true (Kohn, 2000, 2006). According to this criticism, the mere fact that a curriculum or unit of study is constructed
by a teacher (or other authority) makes some students think that they should not bother seeking information
actively on their own, but wait for it to arrive of its own accord. In support of this argument, critics point to the fact
that direct instruction approaches sometimes contradict their own premises by requiring students to do a bit of
cognitive organizational work of their own. This happens, for example, when a mastery learning program provides
enrichment material to faster students to work on independently; in that case the teacher may be involved in the
enrichment activities only minimally.
Criticisms like these have led to additional instructional approaches that rely more fully on students to seek and
organize their own learning. In the next section we discuss some of these options. As you will see, student-centered
models of learning do solve certain problems of teacher-directed instruction, but they also have problems of their
own.
Student-centered models of learning
Student-centered models of learning shift some of the responsibility for directing and organizing learning from
the teacher to the student. Being student-centered does not mean, however, that a teacher gives up organizational
and leadership responsibilities completely. It only means a relative shift in the teacher’s role, toward one with more
emphasis on guiding students’ self-chosen directions. As we explained earlier in this chapter, teacher-directed
strategies do not take over responsibility for students’ learning completely; no matter how much a teacher
structures or directs learning, the students still have responsibility for working and expending effort to comprehend
new material. By the same token, student-centered models of learning do not mean handing over all organizational
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